


New Horizon

by thelastcromwell



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types, Mass Effect: Andromeda
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Comedy, F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-27
Updated: 2020-07-10
Packaged: 2020-09-28 00:57:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 20
Words: 27,194
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20417237
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thelastcromwell/pseuds/thelastcromwell
Summary: Welcome to Heleus Cluster, a new home for humanity (and others) in the Andromeda Galaxy.If only it was that easy.An attempt at a Canon Plus novelization of Mass Effect Andromeda, with more ridiculous shit. Differences will be more noticeable in the later chapters.Tags will be added as the story reaches the point where they are relevant.





	1. 01: Made it

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well here we go. EA/Bioware owns Mass Effect.

Scott Ryder woke up with a gasp and felt like saying something worthy of one of the first in this brave new galaxy. He was a member of the Pathfinder team after all - and while the small-step quotes would most likely be handled by his father, he better get some practice anyways, just in case.

“We made it.”

That didn’t come out quite as nice as he’d hoped, but it was the best he could do with the lack of time before two sleepy techs gave him a tug, a slap on the back, and a big mug of distinctly low-quality coffee. The youngest Ryder (damn his one-minute-older sister) looked around and saw a red line with arrows on it leading… somewhere. Having no better ideas, and because it was probably, hopefully, there for a reason, he decided to follow it and see how that goes.

`````

It went pleasantly well and got him to a medbay that had something in common with a beehive - probably because the asari doctor (how did Lexi end up on the human Ark anyways? Ryder, the ever-curious, as per family tradition, made a mental note to ask her later) stuck a rather painful needle in Scott’s shoulder before checking his reactions.

A giant vid-screen spouted inspirational clips on how great and easy the Heleus cluster is going to be to live in. Ryder absentmindedly listened in while looking at Dr. T’Perro’s erratically twitching fingers as the tests demanded.

“Makes it sound so easy, doesn’t it?” The doctor seems to have noticed it as well.

About four things went through Scott’s mind. He wondered at the diversity of his thoughts and, after a brief consideration, went with the most casual one of all.

“I hope not. I signed up for at least a little adventure before we settle down.”

The asari hummed and nodded. “Well you might just get your wish.” she said with a perfectly neutral expression. “You know something?” Ryder inquired.

“What came down. The pathfinder wants you all mission-ready within the hour.”

Well, shit. Adventure is one thing but an impending catastrophe is another, and hitting dirt so soon after arrival sounds more like the latter.

“Why the rush?” he asked, hoping to at least find out what’s going on.

“He didn’t say.” the doctor replied. “But something’s up.”

Definitely well shit. And if it’s need-to-know, it’s serious.

The doctor checked SAM, the resident AI-with-a-slightly-creepy-implant-system and sent Ryder on his way.

“Though you may want to hang around while we revive your sister.”

That was big. Scott could just about imagine the look on Sara’s face when she finds out she’s no longer the older one.

And then something rumbled, almost like… something scraping against the hull?

All Ryder could say was, “I don’t like the sound of that.” Then he remembered what usually happens in vids once that gets said and braced for impact. Which didn’t help him much when he got knocked on the floor along with Lexi. His sister’s pod went sliding and it seemed like there’s about to be a recon specialist shaped, very turian, or maybe even krogan, piece of abstract art on the wall when the gravity went out, the pod bounced on something, and went flying over their heads.

The captain was on the loudspeakers, demanding a report - apparently the gravity cut out, who would’ve thought. And then another voice showed up, one Scott didn’t really want to hear.

“I’m almost at the cryo bay!”

The doors opened, and in floated a human woman with that haircut that has, for centuries, been the worst nightmare of any retail worker.

“Don’t worry everyone, I’m a Huntress Commando!” she cried, and then spoke a tad quieter, “This is Cora, I’m at the cryo bay, brace for a reset!”.

Ryder was standing upright and ready for something like this to happen, so he avoided the fate of most others in the room and didn’t make a graceful face landing.

“Everyone okay?”, Cora asked, seemingly feeling a bit guilty at how little advance warning she gave.

“I think so.” Lexi replied and Scott cut in.

“What happened?”

“We’re not sure,” the human woman replied, “sensors are scrambled.”.

Another voice through the loudspeakers. “Mission team, continue preparations. Cora, Ryders, report to the bridge.” Scott could recognize it as his father’s.

“Uhh, we have a problem here. “ a tech spoke up, and Ryder couldn’t shake off a bad feeling. “It’s Sara Ryder.”

Definitely well shit. Despite all their quarrels and pissing each other off, the Ryder twins were on the inseparable side of things. Fortunately, this was a medbay and Dr. T’Perro immediately went to take a look.

“Don’t worry Scott. When I was with the Asari Huntresses, they had the best doctors. With Doctor T’Perro here, everything will be fine.” Cora Harper “reassured”. It seemed to Scott that anyone who ever had any contact with that lady immediately found out she used to be an asari commando, most often within the first minute of conversation, and not infrequently as the first thing she said.

“She’s fine, but her revival was interrupted. To be on the safe side though, we are going to have to keep her in a low-level coma for a while.”, the good doctor reassured, freeing him from responding to Cora. SAM agreed with the assessment, and the Pathfinder’s son couldn’t do anything but go on his not entirely merry way.

He just walked outside and received an explosion to greet him. A power conduit has gone bad, and after picking out the damaged relay with his Pathfinder-grade scanner he reset the system as the techs working on it requested.

He continued out onto the tram that had a lot in common with dreadnought railguns. Ryder idly wondered if it could be made into one in a pinch and thought about sharing the idea with Cora, but figured it wouldn’t be worth another mention of her asari training and whatnot. Especially the manuals. It seemed like she went over the weight limit for personal effects trying to get genuine tree paper copies of these onto the ark and had to leave some behind, along with all other of her worldly possessions. Scott himself embraced the pioneer spirit fully and brought a spare set of underwear.

`````

The bridge was a scramble. Alec Ryder was the only one remotely calm. Then again, the man’s grey hair and military-grade stiffness gave off that vibe regardless of what was going on. He tried to argue with Captain Dunn about something - it seemed like he wanted to simply land the ark on Habitat 7, the human golden world, with minimum prior recon. Scott doubted his father could have been that stupid. Not to even mention, the arks aren’t made for landings.

Of more interest was what they crashed into. It seemed to have been some sort of an energy cloud - quite possibly a dark energy cloud. And the golden world - “New Earth, if we’re lucky” according to Alec - didn’t look all that good. The cloud dampened SAM’s scanners, and the recon team was to be sent in practically blind. The Pathfinder took his lieutenant Harper with him (Ryder Junior was quite happy he could stay out of range of Cora’s asari commando stories) and went to prep the shuttles, leaving Scott to talk to the captain.

Dunn wasn’t exactly pleased with his father, and he could understand that. They weren’t exactly close for many of the same reasons, but if there was one thing Scott liked about his father it was the explorer’s spirit. Both of them joined Alliance military to see the galaxy, and Scott really left the Milky Way more to see what nobody else has than for a new beginning like his father and sister.

`````

The atmosphere in the locker room was rather joyous and the ground team was surprised the Pathfinder ordered weapons to be distributed. Scott managed to nab a Phalanx pistol and an Initiative-branded Ghost rifle. It was good enough, despite the distinctly unsettling black box feature.

He was rather worried about Sara. Alec seemed to understand, which was a bit surprising, and did unusually well at reassuring Scott. Ryder Junior wondered if maybe there was indeed a better beginning with his father in this new galaxy. Senior, meanwhile, made a doubtlessly inspiring speech. If Scott wasn’t entirely sold on the idea of exploring a new galaxy already, he would have been by this point.

`````

He met Liam Kosta on the shuttle - he was a nice enough guy. Definitely enthusiastic - Ryder didn’t expect anyone to outdo himself in this regard and yet there it was. He also had heard of Sara by now and did his best to reassure Scott, who started to think that was going to be the next big conversation topic after Cora’s history with the asari commandos.

That ride was a shaky one, the weird dark energy cloud creating “gravitational anomalies” that messed with the shuttles and their controls. Cora, predictably, tried to start a radio conversation about Asari Huntresses, but was reminded to keep idle chatter off the comms - Scott was very, very happy he was in the second shuttle.

And then they entered atmosphere. In the middle of a bloody thunderstorm. And the atmosphere wasn’t breathable. Just great.

“Uhh,” - Liam sounded a bit surprised, “the mountains are floating.”

Even better.

“Shuttle 2, are you seeing this?” Cora asked, so amazed by the sight as to forget the commandos for now.

The strange black, angular buildings were very impressive indeed. Definitely signs of advanced engineering, as someone in the group stated. They alerted the Ark but received no response.

And then they got hit by one of these weird lightning bolts.

Liam was thrown out almost instantly, and Scott didn’t even have time to feel sad for his new, rather brief, friend before they took another hit and it was his turn.


	2. 02: Arrival

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder gets everything that comes with being a Pathfinder. Like a pissed off second in command, dysfunctional leadership and a cool ship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yada yada yada everything belongs to their respective owners.

And the day started so well. On the other hand, Ryder wondered whether about five minutes of things being fine would count as that.

And now, here he was, the new Pathfinder, with a potentially-mind-reading AI in his head. Scott really wasn’t an exhibitionist, but he’d have to put up with that bit. His private, internal thoughts though? Especially the ones that would pop up at the most inopportune times. Not to even mention, SAM was a little socially awkward and would probably tell anyone who asks.

“SAM? Can you read my thoughts?”

Okay, so maybe that came out a bit childish.

“I receive all external stimuli that you do, Scott. I can also recognize which brain chemicals are present and therefore determine basic emotions with a high degree of accuracy. I cannot, however, recognize your precise thoughts. Note that you must speak for me to understand your requests.” SAM informed.

Ryder was perfectly fine with that setup. Maybe not perfectly fine, because someone else looking through your eyes was all kinds of creepy, but better than the other possibility.

Unless SAM was lying, of course. Still, he probably wasn’t. The new Pathfinder decided that if there’s anyone he should trust, it’s the one who requires him for a meaningful existence and will feel his horrible death should anything go wrong.

On that note, was SAM even a he? He... it… whatever, certainly sounded male. Is it wrong to assume something is male because it sounds like it? Ryder wasn’t having that debate with anyone, let alone himself, and decided to simply ask and hope it doesn’t sound too offensive.

“What gender are you, anyways?”

If the AI was in any way affected by the question, it didn’t show. “I have taken on a male identity due to the acronym for Simulated Adaptive Matrix being a common name for human males.” That explains it. Not like a baby AI would care much about that anyway. Scott was rather surprised to hear a distinctly feminine voice coming through the speakers. “If you so desire, my external expression can be changed in any manner.” Ryder entertained the thought of a virtual lady guiding him through the new galaxy before deciding it was too cliche.

“Uhh… thanks, SAM. I’d rather you stay the way you were.”

“Acknowledged, Pathfinder.”

There it was again. Pathfinder. He was the Pathfinder - because his father valued Scott’s life more than his own, because Alec, despite how distant he always was, knew his son well enough to see that he had what really mattered for a true pathfinder - the explorer’s spirit, and trusted him to be able to do it. Now that Scott thought it, that might have been one of the reasons for what his father did. He was a lot less unqualified for the job than their resident bootleg asari.

And (probably former, as the Initiative was apparently purely civilian) Lieutenant Cora Harper was in a state of cold fury. With some of the things she said, Ryder wasn’t entirely certain he could let her stay on the team. “Keeping his mission alive”? It was like Ryder has already failed to her. And that was said by the woman who wouldn’t tie her shoelaces if the ancient manuals didn’t require her to. Someone with so little ability for independent thought should not be allowed to lead. Plus, she would simply defer to any asari available. Doc T’Perro was a good doctor, as evidenced by Ryder’s continued survival, but he had doubts about her ability as a Pathfinder. On the other hand, she could hardly be worse than Harper herself.

On the other hand, there was Liam Kosta. Scott was quite surprised to see him alive and well on the ground, his decidedly awesome leather (?) jacket somehow undamaged, but the ex-cop was handy to have when it came to a fight and seemed to be genuinely good at heart. If a little hotheaded. His somewhat disturbing willingness to shoot first would have gotten them into a situation if the boneheads didn’t think the same. Ryder figured a simple explanation of his own personal policy of being nice unless otherwise provoked would be something Liam would accept easily enough. And he checked up on Sara. That was something Scott didn’t want to think about too much. The question of what he would do if his sister didn’t wake up was still open.

At least Captain Dunn was sensible enough to head to the Nexus rendezvous point. If they asked him back before heading down to the planet, he would have been in favour of it from the start - and that wasn’t just hindsight speaking. He clearly remembered thinking they should try to make contact with the others first, with the weird cloud and whatnot. Hopefully there were still others. They barely touched the cloud and Ryder had to fix the power systems that were going to kill everyone still in cryo - if any of the arks (or the Nexus itself) flew into it while everyone was still asleep…

A race would probably get wiped out just like that. How did that cloud even happen? There wasn’t anything like it back in the Milky Way. Or maybe they just hadn’t seen it, having explored all of two percent of their old galaxy.

Pathfinder Scott Ryder still had about an hour and a half to rest. Like that’s going to happen.

`````

Scott remembered how Alec Ryder was surprised at him having explored the area. Actually no - that wasn’t surprise. He was proud. And happy. Proud and happy that his son thought about more than immediate survival and tried to figure out what was going on, with appreciable headway and two of his men being saved from the not-locals as the result. Did he see a true heir to his cause right there? Scott thought about snarling at Harper for a second, but didn’t and stepped out onto the Nexus instead.

It was quiet. As the old cliche goes, too quiet. And rather dark. Darker than Citadel Version Two Point Zero should be. Cora was, quite as expected, quick to say something about asari commandos, but Ryder simply ignored her. The Pathfinder and his team pressed forward, not even bothering with Avina. They did find an actual person - a human man, who seemed rather surprised at their arrival. Then a turian showed up. Male, blue clan markings, tired sounding - so tired it was clear even to a human, and wearing some rather shiny armour.

Tiran Kandros explained just how much of a mess they were in, and the new Pathfinder found himself thinking Cora might have been right about him being destined to fail.

`````

The freaky memory recording thing didn’t help matters any. And why would his father want to encrypt everything like that, let alone make it eventually, but not instantly, accessible? The contents of Alec’s files raised more questions than they gave answers.

And all the other things he picked up along the way - like the bloody murder case, of all things - were going to be a whole other bag of tricks. The management wasn’t much help either - Addison was simply an ass and Tann… well, he was a lot less of an ass but not quite willing to bet everything on Ryder. Not that one could blame the Director for that and he was at least willing to give it a try.

Still, Pathfinder Scott Ryder now had a ship. That counted for something. The Tempest reminded him of the Turian Hierarchy designs - they were the only ones who kept wings on spaceships, although he had to admit it’s a good enough place for the engines and it certainly looked nice. Plus, they would be doing a lot of atmospheric flight.

“Let’s pick it up, people! We’re fourteen months late!”

Whoever that was, Scott liked her already. Someone who at least tries. He still couldn’t see why Tann didn’t simply appoint a Nexus Pathfinder from among the people who were woken up when Nexus hit the Scourge, as the weird cloud was called around here.

“So you’re the one who’s making everything happen.”

Ryder looked up at the turian woman standing on the ship’s ramp. She was wearing some kind of light armor, and really more like heavy clothing with extra armor pieces in all sorts of colours - not quite the combinations he’d expect but nothing too hideous. The tails were something else - in all his time on the Citadel, he’d never seen anything like that. Seemed like something for recreating that scene from that ancient Star Wars vid he’d seen in human culture class back in school though. Purple diagonal lines for clan markings went surprisingly well with a yellow-rimmed visor (seemingly pinging with notifications).

She walked down (Scott still had to look up at her as was the norm with turians of either sex) and introduced herself.

“Vetra. Vetra Nyx. Initiative wrangler, provisioner, gunner, and everything in between.”

That clicked.

“So you’re the Vetra everyone in Ops has been dumping supply logs on for the past hour?” Scott chuckled, glad his habit of lowkey eavesdropping was helping make an impression here.

Her mandibles flared and she chuckled in reply. “Yeah, that’s me. So, are we ready? The sooner we get out of here, the better.”

That was a surprise - but not an unwelcome one for once.

“You’re coming with us?”

“Yes. Otherwise, there’s no way they’re letting this ship off the station.”

Well, shit. Here we go again.

“There a problem?” Ryder replied, wondering what sort of managerial issue would come up.

“Right there, behind you. Dammit.” Vetra replied, and Scott turned around to see a human man running, quite out of breath.

“Hold it, hold it.” he ran up to them and failed to stop on the smooth surface.

Ryder and his new crew member took a step to the side, allowing the runner to trip on the cargo ramp and faceplant on it with a particular whack.

The Pathfinder crouched down and scanned the poor bastard. “Out cold.” There was, finally, a use for Cora. “Harper, get him to the nearest security guard and then get on the ship.”

“Yes sir. I’ve carried heavier in my Huntress squad, being the youngest one, sir.” she replied.

As the biotic left, hauling the runner on her back, Vetra looked at Scott once more.

“I should give you a tour while we wait, Pathfinder.”

“Sure, Vetra. And don’t bother with the title. Call me Ryder, or just Scott.”

He liked that someone cared about doing things instead of just talking about it.


	3. 03: The Men and Women

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder socializes with his new crew.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns their (its? whatever.) worlds. I'm just having a bit of innocent fun.

The ship was quite something. Ryder recalled hearing something about a joint Alliance/Hierarchy stealth vessel a few years before they left, which would certainly explain the clear influence of both design philosophies on this one and the ship model he found in Alec’s quarters. The Tempest also came with extensive fabrication systems, which was something he could appreciate. Scott thought about ripping off Liam’s jacket but, as was the norm with such ideas, discarded the thought (at least for now).

The crew was quite something as well. The flight wasn’t going to take long, so the Pathfinder figured he’d check on them and figure out the ground team he’s taking.

Suvi Anwar, the science officer. Very much a typical scientist who would forget what’s going on if she’s engrossed in something - her theories on the Scourge were certainly interesting, if not practically applicable. Scott did learn a bunch about it - most importantly that it messed with the “kett’, as the boneheads were called, just as much as it did with the Initiative. Everything so far indicated these aliens didn’t come from Heleus. Maybe the Scourge could be weaponized against them - hopefully not by them.

Kallo Jath, the pilot. Fast-talking, gossiping, salarian. Worked on the Tempest from the start - that could be useful. Apparently trained pilots in hazardous flight to scavenge for supplies early on. Probably a very good pilot, but Ryder didn’t get an opportunity to see him in action. Yet. There’s probably going to be plenty in the immediate future.

Scott decided he could just as well get Cora out of the way next. Ensure she’s not going to blast him in the back or something once they hit dirt. Or, you know, learn not to rely on her.

`````

He opened the door to the biolab, and was greeted with her biotically kicking a crate, something rattling around inside.

“What the hell was that?” Ryder reacted, while quietly, as not to provoke anyone, pulling up a barrier with his own biotics.

Cora sounded surprisingly not murderous. “Sorry. It’s just my biotics reacting to… all this. I don’t normally lose it like that.” Here it comes. “A Huntress should have better control.” Called it. She continued, “It’s another term for an Asari Commando. I was one, before the Initiative.” Scott was beginning to suspect she had memory issues in addition to simply being annoying with her backstory. “Some things stick though. Like losing the old man.” Cora paused, like she was waiting for a response, and Ryder complied. “He was MY father, you know?”

She seemed to think for a second. Although, judging by what she said, she didn’t.

“He was a friend and mentor who trained ME to be a Pathfinder.” The actual Pathfinder’s eyes narrowed at that point, and Harper continued. “I won’t get in the way, but… I prepped for years to be your father’s second, and then he chooses you. An untrained Pathfinder with all this mess to fix? The hell was he thinking? That would never happen with asari, you know. I’ve heard of a Justicar who executed her own daughter.”

Ryder had enough.

“Maybe he was thinking the Pathfinder should be able to wipe his own ass without a direct order from an asari.” he retorted, and left Cora to rethink her life (although let’s face it: she probably didn’t) before the crate could chase him down and take his head off.

Scott, with the mess he found himself in, wasn’t so sure of himself either, but dammit! He was the only one allowed to actually say it! And Cora being simply jealous didn’t help either.

`````

Doctor Lexi T’Perro was next in line. She gave Scott another poke in the shoulder, but was happy to satisfy his earlier curiosity - apparently she was a xenophysician, which made her an expert on pretty much any Milky Way species, with the possible exception of vorcha, who neither were in Andromeda nor required medical care - as far as anyone knew, at least. Lexi was also confident in her ability to figure out more species, which would come in handy should they meet someone who isn’t going to shoot on sight.

Ryder headed to the drive core next, while thinking about how he was the alien (and just how awesome that was - and how it became possible in his father’s lifetime).

Gil Brodie seemed competent, and a nice enough person as well. Definitely one of these engineers that throw ideas at a problem until one of them accidentally works. Also apparently the poker king. And also, an acquaintance of Vetra’s. Turns out, she also assembled the crew, and was getting their preferred equipment sorted out to be ready for when they returned to the Nexus. That was new. She did introduce herself in a way that fit it though.

`````

Liam Kosta was moving a couch. Apparently, supposedly, theoretically, the soft fabric cover would help dissipate static charge from his omniblades and increase efficiency by a whopping six percent. While that claim was dubious, the requisitions office seems to have fully trusted the brilliant scientific minds that learned that particular law of nature, no doubt through years if not centuries of meticulous research. The couch was comfortable and the beer Liam provided as an incentive for Ryder to assist was cold and good (although the question of where it came from was perhaps best left unanswered). And, just as Kosta promised back on Habitat 7 before things went all the way to hell, he spilled his life story. Scott could see how the man would be suitable for search and rescue - all he really wanted was to help people. Law enforcement was really more enforcement than that, so he left. Simple and understandable. The Pathfinder had just one unanswered question after the conversation, one he decided not to ask: why the literal fuck did Liam Kosta drop everything he could ever want and go to Andromeda?

`````

Scott walked into the armory and was immediately greeted by the turian residing inside.

“Oh hey Pathfinder… Ryder.”

So she remembered that bit about the title.

And apparently, she was on a voice call.

“The Pathfinder’s here? Let me say hi!” - sounded like another female turian, maybe a bit younger?

“Fine, but don’t embarrass me.” Vetra replied. “Ryder, this is Sid, my sister. Sid, Ryder.”

Scott leaned against a corner and asked, with as straight face as he could manage:

“Let me guess. Little sister.”

“Hey!” Sid replied, “who you calli…”

Vetra dropped the call, and spoke up.

‘So, uh, sorry for that. I know it feels like I just jumped aboard your ship without an explanation…”

“I would have done the same just to get off the Nexus.” Ryder jumped in, but she continued.

“That’s not why I came. Sure, I want to explore the galaxy, but I’m really here to work.” Vetra got up and began pacing, somewhat nervously, Ryder noticed. “I know everyone on the crew. Even the actuators Gil prefers for the ship. Better, I know how to get my hands on them. With me around, your crew’s going to be at their best - I’ve got some gear for you as well, it’s in the airlock lockers for now.”

She stopped and looked straight at him.

“We’ve been failing for months, Ryder. Now that we have you, we have a real chance out here.”

That felt… reassuring to Scott. He was an untested Pathfinder after all - barely anyone was willing to even give him a chance, he wasn’t so certain himself, and yet here was Vetra Nyx - doing everything she could to help and trusting that Pathfinder Scott Ryder would uphold his end of the operation.

So without thinking, he responded with the first thing he came up with, while getting off of that damned pointy corner he was leaning on.

“Wow, that’s some laser focus.”

“Yeah? Was it too much? Some people get intimidated.” - she responded in kind, with a humorous, almost chuckling, tone.

Scott walked up closer, looking up at her, and reassured: “We need that sort of drive. I’m just hoping that I can keep up.”

“You’ll keep up.” Vetra responded, and then flared her mandibles. “And I promise I won’t tell you if you don’t.”

The human and the turian laughed in unison, and a slight air of awkwardness hung in the air.

She turned around after a few seconds. “I, uh, should track down a lead for Gil’s actuators. Back channels, you know?” She sat down at her desk and gave Ryder another slight mandible flick. “We’ll chat later?”

He nodded and responded with something about checking out the new gear.

And proceeded to vacate the room, perhaps a bit quicker than usual.


	4. 04: The Next First Step

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pathfinder gets down to buisiness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know who this belongs to. Spoiler, it's Bioware.

Ryder was still trying to wrap his head around that last conversation he had. Was that flirting? With a turian he barely knew? Was she flirting back? She probably was happily married or something for all he knew. At least, that’s what Scott tried to tell himself. He did decide to ask later though, just to know more about his team.

Whatever the case there, Vetra definitely did know where to get the good stuff. Pathfinder Ryder surveyed the fairly wide variety of equipment available for him.

He ended up with a Widow, a Valkyrie, and two Carnifexes. Not the most original setup but it’s a popular one for a good reason, at least among infiltrators. A shotgun might have been in order but two handguns intended for stopping krogan warlords would replace it nicely in a pinch.

Scott also took a Hyperguardian set of armor (a bit heavy, but he was strong enough and SAM’s physiology modification will be helpful), though the helmet was decidedly unsuitable for combat. Eos didn’t require one, so he just left it behind and decided to ask the resident provisioner to track down something that won’t break from headbutting a wall. Interestingly, the armor was sprayed Initiative colors instead of the typical grey - probably intended for security personnel.

Eos itself looked a lot like pictures of New Arizona. Must be nice and warm down there. Suvi ran a scan and oh joy, there were signatures eerily similar to what the Hyperion team came across on Habitat 7. What’s better, it was right next to the two failed outposts. And a rather ominous-looking structure of dark green colour, reminiscent of the bonehead lab from Habitat 7. No wonder Site 2 got ransacked by the kett - setting up right next to that base was pretty much asking for it. Ryder told Kallo to head down and, after a brief consideration of whether to take Cora or let her stew, decided Liam and Vetra will be enough of a ground team.

`````

They assembled in the cargo bay. The Pathfinder has already seen his human companion in action and the man was pretty good (Scott definitely didn’t want to ever end up on the receiving end of that mad jetpack ramming Liam seemed to quite enjoy.)

“Vetra, uh, what have you got?”, Ryder asked, starting to blush from remembering the previous interaction he had with the turian.

Judging by her slight fidgeting, she was also flustered from that. Scott couldn’t figure out if it was good or bad.

“I have a Cyclone… modified. I can shoot faster for longer every once in a while, but it needs to cool down - it still shoots normal when the Turbocharge is off. I also have custom tech armour. And concussive shots, fairly standard.” 

Nyx got her head in the game, the Pathfinder thought. Time for him to do the same.

`````

Site 1 (”Promise” - really asking for it with a name like that) was a dusty mess - surprisingly, the radiation shielding still worked though. Nexus didn’t even bother to recover the valuable equipment left behind - it was a waste of resources, but the scientific value of looking at what happens to Initiative tech in such an environment was somewhat of a consolation. There were still things missing, however. Perhaps the local wildlife liked shiny, metallic, expensive things. Riiight.

Their scans also unveiled a Nomad rover, packed into a shipping crate. Ryder figured he should send word for Addison to pick it up once they were done. The six-wheelers were quite the piece of machinery, with a valuable Element Zero core that should not be left to stew in a sand-blasted graveyard Promise has become.

The team’s first objective was to restore power and run a better scan of the area - the radiation was apparently messing with the Tempest’s sensor systems, preventing it from pinpointing the precise location of the ancient structures. The Colony Control Center was, of course, locked down, because obviously it would be. The code was probably written down somewhere, hopefully outside the CCC itself. The Pathfinder team split up to look for them, and Ryder proved his worth by being the one to actually dig up the goddamned codes on a datapad somewhere in a prefab. Liam and Vetra caught up with him at the locked door (Scott noticed that her pockets seemed a bit fuller than when they started) and they got their guns out just in case something popped out at them. Nothing did though, and for all their efforts they got an “access denied” message, thankfully telling them where the overriding blocker was.

Ryder, flanked by his team, went up to the locked door to the power relay station and, lacking any better ideas, gave it a kick. The door, rather unexpectedly, spoke up with a gruff human accent.

“Huh. Guess that ship wasn’t kett then. They don’t knock.”

Must be someone inside.

“There are people here?” Scott asked, “We thought everyone left was gone.”

“ ‘Course you did.” the man on the other side of the door responded. “Now shove off. Find your own salvage. This spot is mine.”

That explained the missing things in some of the buildings. Ryder decided being nice was the way to go. Not like it’s better for that equipment to get buried in the sand.

“Look, I’m a Pathfinder. We just need the power on to get a scan. We’re not here to take your scrap.”

“Speak for yourself.” Vetra muttered, thankfully too quiet for the intercom to pick up. Liam coughed and gave her a weird look.

“A Pathfinder huh. Like that changes much. Look, I turned the power off for a reason. The kett are patrolling today. If you turn on the generators, they’ll spot it and come kill us all.”

Ryder said nothing and simply unholstered his Widow with a smug expression. Understanding the idea here, Liam raised two omnibaldes and Vetra pulled out and spun up her Cyclone (Scott heard a rather ominous whirring sound, but the guy behind the door probably didn’t.)

“Okay, okay! Just take it easy,” the intercom responded, “the generators have to be manually activated but the override’s off.”

`````

The generators weren’t hard to activate with SAM’s help and they had a great laugh at the scavenger’s expense along the way. The poor sod must have thought they were threatening him and not any potential boneheads that were now going to show up.

Which they did. The Pathfinder team, however, was set up on a roof, just waiting for a shuttle to drop someone off. Liam managed to overload the shielded kett heavy, and a concussive shot from Vetra set off a detonation while Ryder tested out his new sniper rifle on the grunts. The few survivors ran into cover, but the team’s height advantage allowed them to simply shoot over it.

Liam looked quite happy with the victory. Vetra seemed content as well, especially considering the packet of weird sludge (SAM determined it was almost entirely proteins) she found near one of the dead kett. 

“Why do you even want a bonehead MRE?” Scott asked her.

“Bonehead? Good name for the kett.” the turian responded. “ And to answer your question, if you have anything, there’s someone who wants it. Maybe the scientists?”

But Ryder was already pulling a kett rifle from under a corpse. He aimed it at a wall and pulled the trigger, getting a three-round burst that left impressive molten spots on the metal prefab. Vetra nodded in approval.

“I like it.” Scott commented. “I think I’ll keep it. Wonder what they call it.”

“Who, the kett?” Liam asked. “And what are you going to do with that N7 rifle you have?”

“Probably stash it back on the ship. Or maybe Vetra can find a new, more loving, home for it.”

“I’m not a gun runner, Ryder.”, she cut in. “Well, not right now at least. And anyone I’d be willing to let have one of these can get it safely through the proper channels.”

“Actually,” Liam grimaced slightly, “I think the SMG isn’t going to cut it at these ranges. Mind if I grab it?”

Ryder saw no harm and allowed the ex-cop to clip the folded rifle to his other hip.

They returned to the Control Center and started the scan, the scavenger still too scared (whether of the kett or of Pathfinder & Co., Scott wasn’t sure) to show his face. It pinpointed the precise locations of three ancient (or at least old) structures, but getting there would require crossing the radiation zone. SAM and Vetra almost synchronously suggested field-requisitioning the Nomad the team found earlier. The crate required codes to open, but a forward station dropped from orbit solved that issue quite easily and the first of the structures was their next immediate goal.


	5. 05: New Friend, Old Robots

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder meets an inhabitant of Eos. One who isn't locking him out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know who owns Mass Effect. In case you don't, it's Bioware. I'm not responsible for their fuckups and they are not responsible for mine.

The first of the structures wasn’t that far away, just down the path. Ryder ran over some weird bugs on the way there, so they all got out to take a look. Liam prodded one of the flattened, slimy corpses with his boot and was now standing off to the side, keeping watch and looking bored. Ryder scanned the bugs (apparently called a “Kaerkyn”), while Vetra managed to pry off a somewhat well-preserved piece of a shell.

“Some sort of a shell filament. Might be useful for something.” she answered Scott’s unasked question.

“If anything, the scientists should at least be happy to get bio samples. They practically begged me for something to analyze.” he responded.

They both laughed and got in the Nomad. Liam followed, which was a good thing because neither of the two remembered about him at that moment.

`````

The ancient tower’s base looked somewhat like an altar, especially the central console. Ryder scanned a few canisters around the place (apparently containing coolant of some really strong sort) and tried to turn on the console. It didn’t quite work (who could’ve thought), but scanning the wire underneath it unveiled some sort of a… data packet? A very dense data packet, especially for something more or less painted on a wall. The Pathfinder input it into the console but it was going kind of slow. SAM suggested doubling the power input, so Scott reached out and...

Got tackled and straddled by a very raccoon-like asari.

Vetra and Liam both pointed their guns at her, the turian also pulling up her tech armour (Ryder absentmindedly noticed how nice of a color it was).

“Back off, or I will put you down!” Liam yelled. The purple-jacketed asari changed from a stupid grin to an “oh shit” face as she looked at the new threat she seems to have missed when making the decision to ride Ryder.

“Whoa, easy,” she responded. “You’ve come this far, just let it ride.”

Scott’s team relaxed a little seeing no immediate hostile intent.

“I’ve been studying this tech for months,” the asari continued. “I don’t know how you activated these glyphs but you gotta let them cycle through their channels.”

“Right,” Scott responded, not quite comfortable with a random asari on top of him, “time to get off.” He gave her a push to the side, and the asari did a weird ass-up backflip while Ryder scraped himself off the floor.

“Don’t like being sat on, huh?”, the bootleg raccoon laughed, “I know, I know, who am I? I mean, it’s obvious who you are.” She reached out for a handshake and the Pathfinder accepted. 

“I saw the ship swoop in.” , she continued. “You’re a Pathfinder. Was beginning to think the Initiative just made you guys up so the rest of us wouldn’t lose hope, but you’re for real, huh?”

“Maybe you want to knock me down a couple more times to make sure?” , Scott smirked.

“Nah, you’re obviously corporeal. Real hard armour too.”

The structure made some sort of noise and some green lines started glowing all over it.

“Well, just look at that.” , the asari said with a touch of awe.

Two blue beams stretched out to two other, quite similar, towers.

“System has stabilized.” , SAM came on over their comms. “I’m establishing a connection.”

Ryder heard an ominous noise behind him and figured it’s best to turn around and get out of the way, while pulling out one of his handguns.

What he saw was a flying hunk of metal with a bunch of tentacles, glowing lines all over the place, a red beam starting to cook up and a distinctly angry look.

“Aw crap.” , the asari said and shot the bot with something resembling a human revolver from about 300 years ago (though it was more like 900 by this point. Nobody was used to that yet.)

The construct fell but more appeared out of nowhere, including a bunch of two-legged things like the one back on Habitat 7. Ryder put an energy drain on one of those and followed up with a concussive shot, setting off an EM blast which took down a few more. One of the flying ones dinked his shields by about half pretty quickly, so he cloaked and jetted off behind the enemy line, hoping not to get hit by the others (especially his turian teammate’s abnormally fast-firing Cyclone - must be that turbocharge thing). He swapped his handgun for the kett rifle he grabbed earlier and gave it a go against a real target. One of the bipeds got a nice hole in its armour from one burst and a second one melted the internals putting it down for good. Scott really didn’t want to end up on the receiving end of one of these guns himself. He took down another floater, its shields taking an extra burst, and the battle was quite over. Nobody was hurt, which was a good thing, because with the wacky laser-like beams the bots had, “hurt” would probably mean “cut in half”. Or at least missing important pieces.

“Not bad.” , the asari, who Ryder sort of forgot about, walked up to him. “My first tangle with the Remnant was a lot messier.”

“The Remnant?” , Scott questioned, and she didn’t hesitate to answer (that seemed to be a running theme with that lady). 

“These monoliths, the Observer and Assembler bots - they’re all remnants of something much bigger. But that’s too long. Ugh. I hate long. So, they’re Remnant. Like my name’s better as Peebee.”

So there’s a name to the face. More or less of a name.

“I’m Ryder. Scott Ryder.” Sounds like an old, fictional spy but that’s okay.

“You’re a mystery.” , Peebee said. “I’ve been studying those glyphs for months and then you arrive and - pfft - solved, just like that!”

Ryder couldn’t help but agree. “We’ve seen this tech change the environment on Habitat 7 in seconds. We’re hoping it could do something about the radiation here.”

“Atmosphere manipulation? Maybe. Fits the model. All this tech is connected to each other. You’ve activated this monolith and now it’s pinging the others - maybe if you get them all on, it will get you to the master switch. Go get it!”, the asari almost yelled excitedly.

“You sure it will help Eos? Or am I just a handy way to get those monoliths online?”, Scott asked. He really wasn’t entirely sure.

“Well we both get what we want.” , she replied. “It’s not like we can make this planet worse.” He couldn’t really agree with that - a breathable atmosphere is a breathable atmosphere after all. “Here, take my navpoints.” , Peebee continued. “I’ll be - I just have to figure this interfacing thing out.”

She really didn’t seem to be in the mood for talking any more. Like any number of obsessed researchers he’d met in his life, like his mother and sister (wonder how she’s doing. He’d check on her once they get back.) The racoon asari will be out of this world for the next couple of hours at the very least.

Ryder scanned the Assembler biped, which turned out to indeed be the exact same as the one on Habitat 7 and the Observer, which seemed to be more of a maintenance than security rig. Its laser really doubled a weapon more than anything else if SAM’s analysis was correct. He looked around and saw a body. Apparently one of the colonists who couldn’t make it to the evac. Probably more of them somewhere around here. The families would probably be grateful for the closure.

Vetra has once again disassembled their fallen enemies, this time yielding some sort of an unusual polymer as well as a bunch of various components of lesser interest. The team loaded up into the Nomad and headed down to the second monolith.

And then Liam decided to make small talk. If it could count for that.

“So, you’ve got no formal combat training, and I’m counting on you to watch my back? And the Pathfinder’s back?” , he said to Vetra. Oh just great Kosta, you absolutely just had to say that, and it was such a functioning squad.

“Noo, I didn’t sit in a chair while someone waved a labelled gun diagram at me.” , she retorted, visibly starting to lose her shit. Scott really couldn’t blame her.

“That’s not even clever.” , Liam sounded... angry? Why?

“I learned how to fight because it was a matter of survival. Which, look around, is the situation we’re in. So formal? No. Well trained for what we’re up against? Yeah.” The turian was really pissed off now.

“I’d say it’s working well enough.” , Ryder cut in, putting an end to the conversation.

“Hmph.” , Liam slouched in the backseat, which sort of reminded the Pathfinder of his sister when they were kids (and to be entirely honest, himself at around the same time).

And Vetra? She spread her mandibles just a bit and nodded at Scott. He smiled back and hit the accelerator, heading to the second monolith.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This and the next chapters were way too hard. It shows, I think.


	6. 06: Grumpy Old Man

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder meets an angry krogan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I (still) don't own Mass Effect.

Liam spent the rest of the ride to the second monolith sulking in the back. By the time they got there, however, he seemed cooled off, ready to work and not planning on any unfortunate accidents. The place was full of Remnant and, for simplicity’s sake, Ryder simply stopped at far-medium distance and pulled out his Widow. Vetra’s Cyclone was able to do some damage from out here and Liam could make use of the Valkyrie the Pathfinder didn’t even use once.

This monolith also required the scanning of glyphs, though this time, it also required manual decryption SAM was unable to directly interface with. It was a puzzle every species was familiar with, typically known to humans as Sudoku. The AI was able to solve it before any of the organics were simply by looking through Scott’s eyes, and now they only had one left to activate. They also found a few bodies that could be identified and marked for pickup.

`````

The drive there wasn’t all that eventful, except for Ryder didn’t want to drive all the way to the ramp so he just went up the 80-degree slope using a liberal application of the Nomad’s six-wheel mode, forward boost, his own biotic power and a lot of very interesting, if untranslatable, vocabulary he picked up from his various-species friends when growing up on the Citadel. Vetra looked at him with an expression he could not quite place but was pretty sure was impressed surprise.

And of course, he drove straight into a kett encampment, though it looked as if they were rather distracted by some other threat at the moment. Scott ran over a grunt or two, and got out, his team following.

They could now see what the boneheads were vainly, if valiantly, trying to take down. A krogan in orange and brown armour, wielding a very large shotgun and an even bigger hammer, shooting and smashing any poor bastard within range.

Ryder figured that, A, standing around doing nothing isn’t the hottest idea, and B, the krogan was probably friendly. Hopefully. They’ll cross that bridge when they come to it. For now, the Pathfinder squad engaged the collection of kett grunts out of the berserker’s range. The fight didn’t take all that long and the krogan headed, rather menacingly, towards Scott.

Upon closer inspection, it turned out he was pretty damn old, even for a krogan - few lived long enough to grow these weird horn (tusk?) things on their chins. The greyish skin was also a giveaway. And, to top off the image of a true intergalactic badass, he was wearing some serious tusks as decorations on his armour. Charming.

“Who are you?”, the krogan growled at Ryder.

“That was pretty cool.”, he responded, hoping it’s not going to be seen as a provocation.

“Huh. Yeah. Guess it was.”, the krogan laughed but, after another second grabbed him by the chestplate. Well, shit. “Still haven’t told me who you are.”, the old man scorned at him.

Suddenly, Vetra popped out from behind Scott. “Oh, come on, Drack. Stop that.”, she, rather uncharacteristically, mumbled, like an embarrassed kid.

The krogan suddenly sounded surprised. “Vetra?”, he asked, apparently not quite believing his ears and eyes, “What are you doing here?”

“I’m with the Pathfinder.” She was back to her usual confident self. Ryder idly wondered, while still hanging from the krogan’s hand, why she sounded like that earlier, and the turian motioned towards him. ‘That pathfinder.”

“A friend of Vetra’s is a friend of mine.”, apparently-Drack responded and dropped Scott.

“That’s good to know.”, the Pathfinder chuckled (he sometimes amazed himself at how quickly he was able to recover from, say, being dangled by an angry, ancient krogan warlord.) “I could use some more krogan friends. You can call me Scott. Scott Ryder.” There, managed not to do the old fictional spy thing again.

“I’m Drack. Clan Nakmor.” That settles the name business. “You’ll forgive me if I didn’t just trust a stranger from the Nexus. They haven’t exactly treated us krogan well.”

Drack suddenly sounded hostile again, though you never know with a krogan. “What are you doing out here?”

“Just trying to get this ancient Remnant tech to get rid of the radiation.”, Scott responded. “How about you?”

The old krogan sounded benevolent again. “I’ve been quads deep on a couple planets now. Taking out kett bases. Fighting ground troops.”, he signed. “I know what they can do.”

Ryder couldn’t agree more. “It’s not pretty.”, he nodded.

“You know, Drack, we could use someone with your… skills.”, Vetra cut in.

He seemed to consider that for a small while, but shook his head. “Tempting as that is, Vetra, I’m a little too old to be carrying humans through a fight.” Ryder was about to take offence at that, but Drack continued. “Besides, the day I help the Nexus again’s the day the clouds part and the kett keel over, no offence.” Considering what Scott’s heard of the Nexus uprising so far, that is probably a fairly valid argument.

“None taken.”, he responded.

“Good, cause I’m getting bored.”, the krogan rumbled. “I’ll go find more kett to shoot. Try to keep your head out there.”

And just like that, he was gone.

“What a charmer.”, the Pathfinder remarked. “Don’t you say.”, Liam (where the literal fuck was he during that exchange?) responded, and Vetra, the turian who knows everyone, just laughed while rifling through the pockets of one of the still mostly assembled boneheads.

They found another dead human in the kett base. Looked like an autopsy. At least he was already dead by the time the researchers got to him.

The monolith required more glyphs to be scanned and another puzzle was solved in much the same way as before. Except this time, the beams converged on a point… in the lake? Peebee immediately came on the comms, sounding excited, and told Ryder to meet her at the place.

The Nomad was truly a marvel of engineering. “Off a 50-meter cliff” was perfectly within its operational parameters, and while the impact might have been a bit hard even with the thrusters, it was good for a laugh as far as the two in the front seats were concerned. Especially considering the noise Liam, who couldn’t see squat from the back, made when he felt the freefall.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Noticeably shorter chapter but I did get through the hard part heavy on unoriginal dialogue. I took some liberties because I had to throw out the version in which I didn't.


	7. 07: Garden of Eden Creation Kit

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pathfinder finds a path into an ancient bunker with a handy secret.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bioware owns Mass Effect: Andromeda. Whoever owns Fallout these days owns the GECK. They can fight it out over the Vaults.

Peebee was quite excited to enter the ancient underground bunker. Ryder was also quite curious to see what was inside, Vetra seemed to be estimating how much she can sell it for and nobody asked Liam Kosta what he thought. The door, very much not unlike the sealed ones Scott and Liam came across on Habitat 7, opened on its own, without even needing SAM to uplink to anything. The resident AI also notified them there was no radiation inside the bunker itself. That’s certainly a plus.

They entered, and…

“No, no, no, this can’t be right! All that fanfare for an empty room?”, the asari muttered. The room certainly was rather empty, except for some sort of triangular hangar door in the floor? Even then, Ryder’s omnitool scanner was flooded with data beyond its bandwidth capacity. It probably wasn’t intended for standing inside a piece of tech beyond anyone’s understanding.

“There’s some secret here. There must be,” Peebee continued to herself, and then suddenly yelled at Ryder. “Do your… Pathfinder thing!”

Scott walked up closer to the hatch.

He was contemplating actually stepping on it when it opened.

“Oh, you’re good,” she smiled.

“And I make it look so easy.”

A disturbingly deep well opened, but a heatsink Ryder tossed in demonstrated that it would be a controlled fall - and they always have jump jets. Though it would present a problem if the well only went one way - although he could always get Cora to bring a really long rope. If she so decides. Hopefully it won’t come to that.

“Only one way to find out.”

Scott jumped, and Peebee immediately followed with a “Hey!”

Vetra looked at Liam, smirked, and went over the edge.

The remaining human looked around the room, hoping to find another sane person somewhere, anywhere, sighed, and was left with no choice but to go down as well.

`````

The Pathfinder’s scanner was constantly onto something interesting, and even SAM was barely able to analyze all of it fast enough - though he reassured Ryder that it’s going to get better in the case of any subsequent bunkers.

Peebee, restless as she always was (at least so far), spied a side path, and decided to split up, gang.

“It is dangerous to go alone,” Scott said. “Two and two would be safer. Take Liam with you.”

The man in question nodded in agreement, and the bootleg raccoon agreed easier than anyone expected.

The asari waved her hand at Liam and took off, the ex-cop having no choice but to follow.

“Just the two of us, huh?” Vetra remarked. Scott noticed her unusual tone, but couldn’t place it.

“Couldn’t resist the opportunity,” he responded without thinking, and then realized just what he said. Oh shit.

The turian seemed to choke a bit, laughed (in that very distinctly reverberating turian way), and made no further point. Ryder figured he, and more specifically his big mouth, dodged a very large bullet. What the fuck was wrong with him? Outside would be a better place to continue this line of thought, so he stashed it away for later.

`````

After a run-in with the ancient bots, the two found a forcefield of some kind. SAM informed them it couldn’t be lifted, but maybe it would be important later on.

The next interesting thing they came across was a side room. One full of Assembler bots. They looked deactivated but Ryder wasn’t quite willing to take his chances.

“Not going in there,” he said to Vetra, and turned around to leave.

She squinted into the dark room.

“I think there’s a box in there.”

“Think whatever’s in there is worth it?”, the Pathfinder turned back.

“Maybe.”

“Let’s go.”

They tiptoed through the room (Scott briefly wondered whether turians even can tiptoe, or whether, perhaps, they were always doing it), and reached the ancient crate. He put his hand out and…

CLANG!

Ryder spun around pulling the trigger on the kett rifle hoping to hit something that isn’t the smuggler by his side, who was doing the same.

A single, still very inactive, bot has fallen off the rack.

The pair laughed out in relief and surveyed the scorch marks. Tellingly, none of them were on the problematic Assembler itself.

“Reminds me of that one time on Omega,” Vetra mused.

“I sense a story,” Scott responded, immediately curious as to what sort of “that one time” an experienced smuggler could have had.

“Later, once we’re out of here,” she promised. “Watch your fingers. Could be traps here.”

“The scanner isn’t picking up anything, and I don’t see any either,” Ryder reassured, reaching out to the ancient box.

“I’ve made that mistake before,” the turian muttered, absentmindedly rubbing at her gloved hand.

The Pathfinder considered that piece of professional advice and elected to give the crate a poke with the barrel of his rifle. He liked his digits where they belonged, thank you very much.

The prize inside was something SAM identified as a “data core”, though precisely what it did was unclear at this point. It was, however, clearly of value and scientific interest. That was good. Value and scientific interest was exactly what they came for.

`````

The ancients knew their architecture, Ryder would give them that. The weird-ass underground trees (exactly the same as the one in a cave on Habitat 7) were also quite something. Both Scott and Vetra found themselves snapping pictures with their omnitools, one to show his sister once she wakes up (Sara was always the family archaeologist and would be ecstatic at the prospect of a whole new precursor civilization), and the other… for some reason. Maybe to show her sister. Whatever it was, the Pathfinder didn’t see a problem. Quite the majestic little (more like gargantuan) cave. He’d pitch an old-timey tent and live here if he could - although, to face the truth he’d get bored rather quickly. Even though it is a very nice cave.

Which seems to have come to an end. There was some sort of beam between two sets of… petals? made of indeterminate material, and a console connected to it.

And ancient murder robots. Don’t forget the ancient murder robots. These were a problem. Not for long though. Vetra Nyx was quite the distraction of the sort most VI tactical algorithms would prioritize, so Ryder was able to cloak around and take down the distracted bots away without too much trouble, and by the time he got himself noticed, it was too late for the Remnant to do anything, and the last of them fell under a barrage from the “distraction’s” Cyclone.

As per SAM’s suggestion, the Pathfinder activated the console, and was not at all surprised to see a cloudy death bubble approaching, eating away at the wacky underground trees growing in the bunker’s depths. He radioed Liam and Peebee and ran like hell, with the turian right behind him (she was probably just making sure he doesn’t fall behind.)

Scott noticed the force field that prevented their scavenging earlier has come down and entered the room, grabbing anything that looked like it might be of interest to sort out later, Vetra chuckling in what seemed like approval as she loaded up on ancient junk. Ryder really hoped this crap was worth it.

The other two have caught up with them at the entrance. Which was locked. Just great. What a way to die. That cloud sure looked painful.

There was a console just behind him, and seeing as it would be quite the feat to make this situation worse, the Pathfinder smacked his palm on it. Surprisingly enough, the death cloud wave thing froze in place and started slowly receding.

“Too many death clouds around here for my taste,” he wheezed, still winded from the sprint.

“Look on the bright side. We can control this one,” Liam responded, and thought for a second. “Kinda.”

“I got that piece, Ryder! And the scans! I’m coming with you,” Peebee yelled excitedly.

“So, I’m your personal Remnant bunker key now?,” he inquired, raising a brow, in as serious of a tone as he could scrape together.

“Yes.”

That bloody raccoon didn’t even miss a beat.

`````

The four made it to the surface and found themselves under a surprisingly nice sky devoid of clouds, and, as SAM confirmed, radiation. The lake around them was also getting cleaner by the second.

“An outpost will now be viable, Pathfinder,” the AI finished.

“So you really did it.,” Vetra said, somewhat uncharacteristically very quiet. And in an interesting tone of voice too. If she was human, Ryder would say she was about to cry. If she was human, everything would be much simpler, he thought. Wait, what? Another one of these? It’s becoming a bad habit. And too frequent for his liking.

He still figured a pat on the back wouldn’t hurt.

“We did it, Vetra,” Scott smiled like an idiot. Still, whatever anyone would say, that was in order for someone who just terraformed a world in under an hour of wandering through a cave. “Now come on. You promised me a story.”

“We’ve got a settlement to start. I’ll tell you in the Nomad,” the smuggler seemed to have snapped out of… whatever that was. The Pathfinder jumped into the driver’s seat and headed towards the bridge, headed out to, hm, continue… Pathfinding?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seriously though, what were they thinking? I will never be able to disassociate the ME:A vaults from the Fallout ones.


	8. 08: Third Time's the Charm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder establishes Site Three. Hopefully it will work this time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> //TODO: Add disclaimer about Bioware owning stuff.

Ryder set course for the supposed murder site first. He did promise to look into it after all. In the meantime, though, there was something else of interest.

“So, Vetra, what was ‘that one time on Omega’ anyway?,” he inquired.

The woman in question sighed. “I guess I did promise. Fine. Table dancing.” 

“Huh,” Liam raised a brow. The Pathfinder tried to remember the last time Kosta said something more than three syllables.

“Needed a distraction, and I ended up having to be the one to do it.”

Peebee laughed, a bit hysterically. Scott did his best not to imagine that and failed miserably. Which was a bit concerning. He was really sensing a pattern here. Swooning like a fifty-year-old asari wasn’t something he usually did. Especially not over a turian.

“I can see that being… distracting,” he replied. To hell with being reasonable.

“Hah,” Vetra laughed, “Actually, I was terrible at it. Tripped, ripped out a volus’ breather.”

Ryder considered his mental image for a second. “Still very distracting.”

The asari snickered in the backseat.

“He bumped into some batarian mercs, and then the fists were out. The brawl lasted two weeks, and by the time they figured something was off we were smoke,” the turian recalled with a smirk. ”I’ve tried to stay off Omega since.”

A squishing sound indicated Ryder should have been watching where he was going instead of laughing at the failed table dancer. These kaerkyn things really were stupid. It was just natural selection at this point.

`````

Scott got out alone upon reaching the murder spot. Scanning the area revealed an Andromeda Initiative-issue armour vest - a combined chestpiece and backplate, to be precise. It was marked as the one belonging to the supposedly-victim and, somewhat unexpectedly, was thoroughly melted in the back - exactly like the Remnant bots Ryder shot with his trophy. The Pathfinder shrugged and got back in the Nomad. Shortest detective career he ever heard of. 

`````

Ryder drove up onto a ledge next to a dustbowl the Site One scouts (and now SAM) deemed to be a relatively survivable spot, if not for the kett base positioned precariously close. They’d have to deal with that eventually.

A burst of gunfire erupted from down in the bowl.

“Kett forces up ahead,” SAM stated. “They appear to be fighting a krogan.”

“Drack,” the Pathfinder guessed.

“We should go help the old man, or we’ll never hear the end of it,” Vetra suggested. Fair point.

Ryder backed up the Nomad. The turian figured out what was going to happen next, spread her mandibles in a beaming smile, and braced against the dashboard. Liam and Peebee, however, didn’t quite expect a boosted drop off a cliff. Someone in the back screamed like a little girl. Scott didn’t know, and didn’t want to know, who.

The rover conveniently landed on top of a bonehead heavy, flattening him, and the Pathfinder immediately leaped out the door with both of his Carnifexes out, blasting at the grunts. Most people didn’t take double pistols seriously, which was an extra bonus as far as Ryder was concerned. And for a good reason too. Most of the idiots who went around with two handguns these days were just that - idiots, and couldn’t hit shit with either. Scott, on the other hand, always had good hand-eye coordination, especially now that SAM was in play. He didn’t even run through either gun’s thermoclip by the time all the kett were dead, some of them with neat holes, some sprayed down by machinegun fire and some… mashed. Definitely mashed. Like bloody potatoes in an Alliance mess hall (though anyone who’s ever tried those suspected they were, in fact, something much more sinister than potatoes.)

He was alerted by the sound of heavy breathing, and turned around to see the krogan from earlier brandishing a very large hammer. That explains the state of those boneheads. He also noticed that his other two companions were just about done getting out of their vehicle, still visibly shaken. The lack of rear doors was a problem. And he really should give them a warning the next time he drives off a cliff.

“Hah,” the krogan grunted at Ryder, “That was a good fight.”

“What, did you think I’d let you have all the fun?,” he responded. It really was a good fight. He has now put all of his weapons to use.

“And I hear you’re the one to thank for clearing up the skies,” Drack said. The Pathfinder wondered how he knew. Maybe Vetra sent him a message along the way. And speaking of her.

“So the clouds did part, and the kett are keeled over,” she walked up, closing a pouch on her armor.

“Guess they are,” the old man nodded.

“You sure you don’t want to reconsider?,” Scott recalled their previous conversation.

Drack made a show of looking around.

“You know what? That was a good fight. I’ll ignore my gut and join up,” he decided. “And before you say you don’t need a krogan - believe me, you do.”

Lexi would have a field day with that.

`````

The outpost was more or less ready to go, with one major question remaining: whether it would be military or scientific. Ryder has already made up his mind, but figured he’d hear what others have to say about it.

“So what do you think? Military or scientific?,” he asked turning to face the ragtag bunch of misfits gathered around him.

“Can’t solve Remnant with guns,” Peebee spoke up. “Scientific for sure.”

“It’s got to be science. Our colonists need to understand their home.” More or less what was expected from Liam.

“I say scientific,” Vetra perked up. “Aren’t we here to explore?” Very cheerful. Scott liked her like this. (“Then again, you like her any time, don’t you?,” his rare inner voice popped up like a jack from a box, but Ryder shut that bastard up and he retreated for what’s probably going to be at least a few months.)

It was Drack who surprised the Pathfinder.

“I don’t know, kid. There’s the kett, but… it is supposed to be ‘a better beginning’, isn’t it? Go with scientific - long as the Nexus aren’t total idiots, they’ll be fine. And nobody’s going to miss them if they are.”

Scott wondered what that one was about (not quite what you’d expect from a krogan warlord with tusks on his chin) and called in a scientific outpost. Cora’s probably going to sneer at him even more.

`````

Addison was quite the bitch (Ryder discovered shifting into not quite a parade stance when offered a handshake does wonders to her facial expression), but she did raise a fair point: they had no further leads. Worst case scenario, they will just have to manually scan every planet till they find another one of those Remnant bunkers to activate. On the bright side, the Pathfinder now had a racoon on his team who just happened to be the foremost expert on ancient crap strewn all over the cluster. Maybe she’ll have a better idea.

Scott poked around the settlement for a bit, made small talk with the colonists, ended up agreeing to (eventually) do a bunch of small-time tasks, got bored and started reading the unlocked email terminals strewn all over the place. Until he came across one with a post scriptum intended specifically for him. How Vetra Nyx the Queen Quartermaster knew he would go around reading people’s emails, Ryder would never understand. 

Tann was waiting on the Nexus, the Pathfinder had a shipful of people to check on, and he really didn’t want to be here when someone figured out just why half of the messages in Prodromos were marked as read.


	9. 09: Idle Chatter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Scott has all the conversations and asks a particular question.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Assuming direct Bioware.

Kallo was bickering with Gil over the intercom. Apparently the human made some sort of modification and the surprisingly sentimental salarian wasn’t a fan of that. He claimed it wasn’t going to be a problem, and Ryder decided to believe him for now. Though considering just how big of a clusterfuck the entire Initiative was (though slightly less so now, thanks to his efforts), modifications might well be in order.

Suvi really did surprise him with that “divine intelligence” thing.

“Well, what is a ‘divine intelligence’ anyways?,” Scott asked. He’d thought about this a decade ago, purely hypothetically, and came up with a rather atheistic way of thinking as a result.

“It’s something we just can’t understand,” the scientist replied after a minute of thought.

“So a mass relay is god? It’s not something we can understand. Or replicate for that matter.”

Suvi appeared a bit shaken. “I’ll have to think about that, and I have to update the Nexus science team on our Eos data. Talk later?”

“Talk later,” Ryder nodded, and headed to check on how Peebee was settling in at her hidey-hole.

`````

The asari hasn’t been in the escape pod for more than an hour, but has already made a truly magnificent mess of the place. Scott remembered his own room back when he was a teenager. Though he didn’t quite have as many ancient killer robot pieces laying the place. Perhaps it’s an asari thing. She also had a piece of Remnant tech sitting on a table.

“Ryder! You’re here! Good!,” Peebee was practically bouncing around him. “Look!”

She hit the weird little box and a cloud popped out.

“What the hell is that?,” Ryder jumped out and then felt like an idiot as he came to recognize a star chart of some kind.

“I don’t know!,” she yelled out, excited.

“Curious one, aren’t you?,” the Pathfinder remarked.

“Yes. Very,” his now-resident Remnant expert replied. “But I think it’s some kind of a computer or command interface - maybe like an omni-tool. This is a star chart, but I think there’s something else in there that could help with, let’s say a personal project.”

Scott thought for a second. “SAM, can we find out what this map represents?”

The AI was quick to reply. “One moment, Pathfinder. Overlaying with known star chart data.” Ryder’s omni-tool pinged, and he was able to pull up a hologram that merged with the Remnant one, providing labels to star systems. He saw Eos and Habitat 7 were marked with different colors - and there was another one like Eos fairly close by (bright, leafy green). Besides the bright pinkish red (same as the angry Observers) for Habitat 7, there were two more colours - a few dots of the same light blue the docile remnant had and much, though not all, of the rest of the cluster in a dull blue-green like the glowing lines in Remnant structures.

Peebee has spotted the second green dot too. “Look, Ryder!,” she stuck her finger into it, and another into Eos.

“Think this means ‘active terraformer’?,” he wondered.

“Can’t hurt to take a look,” she shrugged. “SAM, download all this, or something, and Ryder, go. I want to see what else I can dig out of this bit of Remtech.”

“Remtech, huh? Remnant Tech? I’ll see you around Peebee.”

The Pathfinder left the escape pod bay, pondered whether he should allow people to kick him out on his own bloody ship, failed to come to a definite conclusion, and decided to check on the other new (actually really, really old) recruit.

`````

Eavesdropping outside the kitchen door revealed that Drack had contact with Kesh, the Nexus superintendent, and that he was maintaining something (wonder what. Maybe guns?) Scott popped in for a quick shakedown talk, found out the Krogan are still alive and have a colony, agreed that Tann attempted to bend the krogan over (he’d pay to see that happen literally) and turned to leave.

`````

Lexi was standing at the research station and exchanged pleasantries, as well as the promise of psychological profiles on the crew with Ryder, who continued on into the biolab to have The Talk, Version Two Point Zero, with Cora. He was pleasantly surprised.

“Pathfinder. I need to apologize.” Well if it ain’t the Biotic Bitch, figuring out just how much of a bitch she was.

“I’d say you do.” Scott leaned nonchalantly against the doorsill. Close enough to run if need be.

“I was just so caught up in getting passed over, the Leusinia missing, and, well,” Harper took a breath, “everything… I never realized how much worse it is for you. Alec was your father after all, and I remember how it was when my parents disappeared. But, as Thiaseda’s writings say, ‘the greatest strength comes from perseverance against loss’.”

Of course she had to quote one of the bloody manuals.

“Well,” Ryder responded, “I think I understand you. But here’s what we’re going to do: I’m the Pathfinder, I know what I’m doing ( _ most of the time _ , he thought, but didn’t say it), and I don’t need an asari to tell me what to do. So you like chains of command so much? Remember who's boss.” Well maybe that was a bit overboard. “Sorry, Cora, but I’m still pissed. Talk later?”

She smiled, somewhat forcefully. “See you later… Scott.” What an amazing display of friendliness. Maybe don’t be an ass in the first place, Harper.

`````

Gil was up to his gills inside the wall, presumably fixing or “upgrading” something, so Ryder decided not to bother him. Hopefully he isn’t going to break anything all the way.

Liam was celebrating their recent success in the company of a beer bottle and a battery of empty ones. Scott declined his offer of a swig (it was the last beer on the ship, apparently), left the ex-cop alone, and made a mental note to check in with Lexi and ensure nobody develops alcoholism. Though the wacky shit the Pathfinder and the resident turian have seen (he chuckled, remembering the racket they made when that Assembler fell off the rack) probably pales in comparison to following a hyperactive asari into the depths of an ancient bunker that was full of spike pits for all anyone knew. Maybe the man does need a drink.

And speaking of resident turians, there she was.

“Hey Vetra,” Scott walked up behind her (feeling his heart rate jump).

She turned away from the desk she was working at. “You know, when I woke up today, I expected more of the same dark Nexus, but… it’s over. It’s really over. We did it,” the turian said, excitedly, sounding like she was about to laugh out in relief.

“I know what you mean,” the Pathfinder responded. “I don’t want this high to go away.”

“I’m going to enjoy it for as long as it lasts before I settle down.” Well that’s a surprise.

“Settle down?,” Scott questioned. 

“Yeah. Now that we’re back on track, I thought maybe I’d talk to a colonization expert. Get assigned to an outpost, start a farm or something.” She laughed, quite possibly at his facial expression. “Oh, who am I kidding? I love being here. I’m staying on this ship until you kick me off.”

“Can’t get away that easy,” Scott laughed too, before he realized how kind of creepy it was. Still, she didn’t seem to mind.

“So, need something? Need something done?,” the smuggler asked. Normally Ryder would expect these words to sound annoyed, but Vetra somehow managed to sound quite jovial and more happy to help than anything.

“Actually, yes. If it isn’t too difficult, could you find me a helmet - one that isn’t made of, you know, easily-breakable glass?”  _ Dammit, I sound like a spoiled brat.  _

“I see your point there,” she chuckled, “and I’m happy we turians got the old-fashioned solid faceplates. It shouldn’t be too hard to get one of these. Anything else?”

_ Here’s where I find out she’s happily married. _

“I’ve been wondering about you,..” Scott said, and Vetra raised a browplate.

“Sure, ask away.”

“Have anyone else here with you? Besides Sid?,” he questioned.

“No, just me and Sid. It’s always been just the two of us,” the turian answered promptly.

“No, I mean, someone… special.”  _ Real smooth there. _

“Special?,” she paused. “Oh. You mean like… Ohhh. No,” she chuckled, ”Nothing like that. Who has time? What about you?”

_ Well that’s reassuring. _

“Anywhere’s gonna feel empty if you don’t have someone to share it with,” Scott answered. It just came to him - he’d never expected to say something that hopelessly romantic before.

Vetra had the same idea. “A romantic. I wasn’t expecting that.” That was an… interesting tone right there. She paused for a second. “Then again, the entire idea of leaving everything you know for a chance at something new is kind of… romantic,” she smiled. “Um… Anyway…”

Ryder noticed that he wasn’t the only one at a loss for words here, but couldn’t tell if it was good or bad.

“I’ll, uh, let you go.” He waved his hand and ran off like an idiot.

Real smooth there. Now what?


	10. 10: Musings

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder _ thinks. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm done coming up with snappy attributions. You _ know _ who the world belongs to.

Ryder sat in his cabin, alone except for SAM, but the AI didn’t seem to like to bother him too much. The Tempest was still some time away from the Nexus and the Pathfinder had time to think. He now had a fairly solid plan for the next step in keeping the Nexus alive (namely checking out the unsurveyed green signal on the Remnant map) and decided to move onto a different topic.

Namely, Vetra Nyx, the Queen of Quartermasters and the Tempest’s resident turian.

Scott wasn’t sure what hit him there, seeing as he knew her for less than a day, but he liked her. A lot. Too much for his own comfort. Mostly because, again, he’d known her for less than a day - that seemed a bit early for his taste. He’d never had this sort of thing happen before, but back when he lived on the Citadel, more or less every asari he knew seemed to be in a frenzy over some pop singer whose name (or, for that matter, species) he never quite caught. He reminded himself uncomfortably of these girls.

Speaking of species, he was a human (last time he checked, which was before he ended up with an AI in his head, so maybe it’s worth to check again), and she was a turian. Even if it somehow got to that point, chirality would be an entire bag of fun. Not as bad as most people think. There was an overwhelmingly popular urban legend claiming that dextro is toxic to levo and vice versa, but in actuality one simply wouldn’t get nutrition from the wrong kind of food - although some specific ingredients could hook you up with the allergic reaction to end all allergic reactions, but not anymore so than say, asari food. He knew for a fact. Back in the day, he made a good amount of credits on a bet most would consider suicidal.

But that was getting far, far ahead of himself. Most people (besides asari, but they don’t count) weren’t exactly big on interspecies relationships. The krogan were being krogan, the quarians didn’t quite fancy fatal infections or allergies with their sex, the drell needed to breed to survive and the salarians simply saw no reason for it. Neither elcor nor hanar elicited much interest in anyone (besides asari) so nobody cared what they thought, even an asari couldn’t do anything with ammonia-breathing volus and Ryder didn’t even want to think about vorcha. Although apparently, some guess who (hint: they’re blue) did.

But perhaps the strongest-opinionated were turians and humans. The turians treated interspecies business much the same as same-sex business, that is weren’t as a whole inclined towards it, thanks to their affinity for following rules, including those that governed the traditional idea of continuing the bloodline. The meritocracy allowed it and gave no repercussions (as long as one Did Their Part), but there weren’t many who were interested. The humans were simply a tad late to the party and, as a society, not quite used to the idea of multiple sapient species. Some conservative or simply backward areas still considered that bestiality, though most of them never actually had the chance to nail anyone for nailing an alien (primarily due to how many of the said aliens were on the human side of Relay 314.) It has probably settled within a couple of decades of the Initiative leaving, but this society was still the 2185 one.

Personally Scott thought about this a long time ago (he liked to think about unlikely things). He came to the conclusion that when he meets the right person (read: woman, though you really can’t be certain with these things - one of his friends ended up in quite the situation), species isn’t going to matter, and took solace in the fact that the chances of that person being something his brain hurt to think about were pretty damn low.

Vetra, on the other hand, he was not so certain about. She was a turian after all. On the bright side, she was quite possibly the worst turian in existence. Not in that way, mind you - the worst at being a proper stiff-collared citizen, that is. She was actually really nice.

Even better, now that Scott thought about it, Vetra seemed to maybe be figuring out what he was doing (quite possibly before he figured it out himself), and if she did know, she definitely wasn’t shutting him down. Assuming she did know there were two distinct possibilities: either she wasn’t all the way uninterested, or was uncomfortable speaking out. Ryder really hoped it wasn’t the latter, for a multitude of reasons. Still, the woman didn’t seem uncomfortable. But she was a turian. That complicated things. Maybe they have different customs?

He pulled up his omnitool and figured a private extranet link would be best. He couldn’t be properly anonymous on a ship this small, so Cora Harper’s credentials pulled up an article on turian courtship customs. The Pathfinder, despite being a biotic, always liked tech of all kinds, and was damn good at it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Shorter than I like, but I felt it's a logical conclusion.


	11. 11: Man With a Plan

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder deals with business. And also, not-business.

As the Tempest was nearing the Nexus, Scott closed his omnitool and got off his bed. ”Cora Harper’s” jump down the extranet rabbit hole revealed that turian courtship customs were, if anything, more liberal in terms of fraternization, including with your boss. Fucking one’s way up the ranks was only ever theorized about because anyone who would be willing to go for that would never get the authority to in the first place. The same went for exploitation, which meant Ryder was wrong to worry about that. That felt quite reassuring, and now he had a course of action on all of his problems. Just enough of a plan for it to go wrong.

`````

Vetra materialized out of nowhere as he was leaving the ship. 

“Hey Ryder,” she greeted. “Got a minute?”

“Sure.”

“You still want that helmet, right?,” she questioned, uncomfortable. Yeah, that’s definitely uncomfortable. Turian expressions weren’t that hard to recognize, but he still wasn’t always sure.

“If you can’t find one, it’s no problem. I don’t really get shot in the head that much,” he joked.

“No, it’s not that. And it is a problem. These helmets almost killed you. Twice if my contact wasn’t lying. We can’t lose you to something that stupid.”

Scott felt he was reading way too much into what was just said. He also appreciated how nothing was said about his father’s death. His coping method (for now, at least, but he suspected it’s going to be a permanent arrangement) was to ignore what happened on Habitat 7.

“Getting attached, are you?,” the man teased. Maybe he was taking his chances here, but hell, why not.

“I’m not joking, Scott!,” the smuggler snapped. “You’re the Pathfinder! You got us further in a day than we got in fourteen months, gave us hope…”

The Pathfinder raised his hands. “Sorry, Vetra. That was out of line.”

“I don’t usually mind,” she responded. “I’m just… look, Ryder, they got out your father’s will.”

“And?” He had quite a jumble of emotions, and was feeling his knees starting to shake. Quite the quick transition.

“He left you his armor. The N7 suit.”

“And it comes with a helmet.” The new Pathfinder went silent for a minute.

“So, uh…” the turian reached out and put her three-fingered hand on Scott’s shoulder, “should I find another one?”

He snapped out with a slight jerk, and she hurriedly pulled her hand back.

“I’ll use that one.”

“Good, I’ll make sure it gets on the ship.” She waited a second, then smiled at Ryder (well, spread her mandibles, but that’s how turians smile.) “See you later?”

He smiled back, nodded, and headed off.

He definitely was reading into this too much.

`````

The Pathfinder ambushed by an asari freelancer - thankfully of the journalist kind as opposed to the mercenary one. She explained that Tann wanted a nice inspirational piece, but she, she wanted the Truth, although Ryder got the impression, for some reason, that what she actually wanted was undiluted pessimism. He agreed to an interview, and the asari got her camera going.

“We weren’t expecting all this, and everything went to hell, but it’s getting better. We’ve got a new outpost on, Eos is no longer covered in a permanent radiation storm - though some of the radiation will take a bit of time to clear, and we have a next step which I can’t reveal yet. And I’ve been here for about a day. Just give it time, and now we can honestly say that it’s going to get better.”

“Hmpf. Tann’s going to love this. Bandwidth is limited, so that’s all for now, Pathfinder,” the journalist responded, and ran off.

`````

A protest/riot in Hydroponics was easily dispersed with a reassurance that the Pathfinder was going to fix this mess up real quick, and then thaw out everyone’s families in a snap. Vetra was right - they did get hope. Even if these geniuses did decide to kill everyone by destroying hydroponics if their demands weren’t met. Why Kandros didn’t forcefully disperse them immediately upon hearing the threat was a mystery to Ryder, but it turned out okay in the medium run, so it is what it is.

He browsed around the stores for a bit and bought some models for his quarters as well as an official Initiative-branded set of vehicle paints (for the Nomad). Quite curiously, some of the stores already carried kett protein sludge packets - Scott was fairly certain he could recognize the writing on one of them. How his quartermaster was able to do this so quick, he had no idea.

`````

Tann was quite happy to hear Ryder had a plan, despite whatever Addison told him. The salarian seemed to generally be fine with the Pathfinder and willing to let him have a go at his job. He tried to play king when Kesh and Kandros showed up, but got shut up easily enough.

Telling the Director to let the alleged, but not guilty, murderer go made him frown a bit, and not at the prospect of exiling an innocent, but he did it easily enough.

“Easily enough” generally seemed to be the running theme with that bureaucrat. On the bright side, he now had clearly defined objectives (most notably, finding the arks). It was nice to have an independent recognition of success.

Addison’s aide gave Scott the cryo control codes and showed him around the system, letting him thaw out some of the grunts for security purposes.

He went off to pay a visit to the engineering boss, and came across quite a sight. A gray-haired idiot yelling at a purple salarian to do without  _ air filters _ . The idiot’s name was William Spender, and Ryder sent him off with his tail between his legs by yelling loud enough the passersby picked up on what was happening and nearly lynched the poor bastard for trying to suffocate them. Scott was tempted to let it happen, but figured more people getting exiled wasn’t what they needed right now.

`````

He brought up the man in conversation with Kesh and Drack, who was hanging out in her office. As it would turn out, Spender always had a bone to pick with the krogan and was essentially responsible for the entire debacle with how they packed up and left.

“Putting the ass in assistant director,” as Drack put it. (Ryder was still trying to wrap his head around a 14-century-old krogan making that very English pun.)

Everyone in the room was fairly certain the man was up to something, but nobody had any concrete proof, so Scott agreed to help out - he had a bad feeling about the man.

And wouldn’t you know, the Pathfinder was greeted by an explosion upon walking out of Kesh’s office. The tech who set off the sabotaged access panel was okay, but he had his suspicions, and the one he suspected was suspecting him instead. It was all pretty convoluted and the logical next step would be to check the security recordings, but Scott got a call from Doctor Carlyle. Apparently, they found a way to talk to Sara, “kind of”. What that entailed, he wasn’t sure, but it was good news nonetheless.

`````

Yeah, there goes his okay mood. Telling his still-comatose sister that their father died for him on a “New Earth” without a breathable atmosphere wasn’t something he ever wanted to do again. He’d rather just crawl into a hole, or perhaps pay a visit to that bar that supposedly just opened, and make it so that he  _ has _ to crawl out of there (not really up his usual alley, but this recent development warranted some amnesia.)

Sadly, he still had to deal with the security recordings. And who could have thought! They were wiped. Fully. Ryder decided to also check out Spender’s machinations since he was here, and they were wiped as well. SAM, however, was able to pick out a word. A place.

Kadara.

The exile world. Or at least, that’s what the Initiative thought at this time.

The Pathfinder figured it’s enough work for today, sent a group message notifying the crew that they will be spending the night on the Nexus, and decided to go for a nice walk in Operations.

`````

He met the guy running a “news network” and agreed to help him out with placing transmitters, the scientists (who were rather overjoyed at the prospect of having their own lab in the immediate future) and agreed to hit some rocks for them, and was trying to guess what else the people here will want of him when he got jumped by a very excitable, and somewhat familiar-sounding turian with facial markings bearing a certain resemblance to Vetra’s.

“Hey! Pathfinder!,” she was practically bouncing around him, “I’m Sid! Vetra’s sister! She told me all about you! Well, not  _ all _ about you, but all the important bits!”

“Uh, hi?” Ryder was a tad overwhelmed. Thankfully, he heard a now-familiar dual-toned voice.

“Sidera Nyx, leave the man alone,” Vetra intoned from behind Scott.

“Aw, V, you’re no fun,” Sid mockingly complained, “and besides, I wasn’t really bothering you, right, Pathfinder?”

It took him a second to regain his composure, or at least a semblance of it. “Not really, and you can call me Ryder. Or just Scott. Just. Speak a little slower. Please?”

“Yeah, she’s like that,” Vetra laughed, and turned to face her sister. “Now, you probably have work to do.”

“Yep, the outpost’s lighting up the comms like a Christmas-tree! See ya later!,” she returned to her console, and Scott and Vetra, purely by chance, headed off towards the tram together. Even though their speeds wouldn’t normally match.

“So, how do you like my sister?,” the turian asked once they were on board.

“That was… quite an experience,” Ryder replied. “Also, ‘Christmas tree’? What’s up with that?”

“Oh? Is that a human thing? Yeah, Sid’s into that weird old human shit,” Vetra nodded.

They spent a while in silence, until Scott decided to make small talk.

“Uh, so, what are you planning on?”

“Oh, well, nothing really. I’m done with all the supplies and new equipment, so I’m just going to watch and try to make sure these crews don’t break anything. Where do they get these people?”

“Come on, Vetra,” the man exclaimed in mock indignation, “shore leave is for re-lax-ation. Go get a massage or something. Hold up. Can turians even get massages?”

“Almost. We can get vibrations in the carapace with a hammer.” She shuddered. “Not for me.”

Ryder came up with what seemed to be a bright idea for just enough time to say it.

“Apparently there’s a bar somewhere in the commons. Let’s go there.”

Vetra looked straight at him, surprised. “Together?”

“Well, yeah. I need someone to drag my drunken corpse out of there.” Scott considered what he just said and came to realization. “But you don’t have to!,” he hurriedly added.

“Oh, no, Pathfinder,” the turian smiled. “I’m not passing up a favour like that.”

She noticed the human’s very bewildered expression. “I’m kidding, Scott. I’m coming.”


	12. 12: Sucked Into the Vortex

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder tries to piece together what happened all by himself.

Ryder stirred in his bed and felt the pang of headache. He also felt something else in his bed. Or someone? Shit. Who? It certainly wasn’t a human - too hard. Did he..? Slightly terrified of what he did while clearly drunk out of his mind, he opened his eyes and tried to focus on the foreign object. Upon closer inspection, it was an N7 helmet, all metal, ceramics and carbon fiber. Only a very hungover variant of him could think it was an alien, and only if he was previously sort of considering that. How did he get here, anyways?

`````

A human and a turian walked into a bar. Sounds like the beginning of a bad joke. The place was darkened and somewhat full of people celebrating the new outpost, the flag of which was hanging behind the stand manned by a bald human and an asari. A quick conversation later, Vetra was somewhat impressed with the Pathfinder’s ability to get free drinks (albeit only the first round, and not the good stuff) in exchange for the promise of bringing anything even mildly resembling hops he might find on his travels. It was a pretty good deal, all things considered. Being the Pathfinder has its perks.

“You know, I didn’t have you pegged for a bar person?,” Vetra asked once they settled down at a more private table. Even though it wasn’t really phrased as a question, her tone made it clear.

“I’m normally not,” Scott sighed.

“But?”

“I had to tell Sara. About… everything.” He looked down at his smallish glass of cheap, if positively ancient, whiskey, contemplated it for a second, and gulped it down in two swallows. “She just, went off. I think she thought it was a dream.” He breathed in. “I hope she thought it was a dream... Is that wrong?”

The turian sipped some of her own drink (it was of a very nice, transparent shade of pink, Ryder absentmindedly noted), sighed and looked straight at him. “It’s easier for her. She’s going to ease into it.” Scott nodded, and Vetra finished off her drink. “Hold on,” she got up.

He was brought out of his stupor by a bottle of the same inexquisite liquor he just had appearing in front of him. “Thanks,” he muttered, as his companion settled back in her seat, holding her own bottle, this one containing a liquid of an even nicer color, a purple reminiscent of her own markings. Funny how Scott never noticed how much he liked purple. He was always more of a blue guy and really liked the Initiative color palette. That whiskey must’ve been a lot more effective than he thought. He poured himself another glass.

“I know, Ryder,” Vetra made a pause for some of that pretty liquid. “I didn’t know what to say when Sid started asking.”

“About… family?,” it took him a few seconds to figure out.

“Yeah. I just told her. Wasn’t pretty,” she drained some more purple out of her glass, “But, if you lie about something like that, it will… come out. And that isn’t going to be pretty either.”

She looked kinda really sad there for a moment, and Scott felt like the turian needed a hug, but realized he was getting drunk. He went with a soft “I’m sorry” instead.

“Why?,” now Vetra was looking at him real funny, especially for a turian.

“Uh, well,” he stammered, “because it was hard for you?..”

“Why are you apologizing, Ryder?”

Oh, that.

“It’s a language thing. Like saying ‘It's a shame’.” Definitely time for another drink. “But more personal, I, guess.”

“Ohhh,” she said with a slight whistle, “then… thanks. I mean it.” She poured herself another one and paused for a moment. “It means a lot. You’re the first person who told me that, you know, Sc-Ryder?” Scott was pretty sure both of them were getting kind of drunk, if her pretty purple drink was anything like his whiskey in strength, but he didn’t care. In the dim lighting of the bar, he wasn’t sure, but he thought he saw something in the corner of her eye. Can turians even cry?

“First?,” he asked, mostly just to give himself more time to figure out what to do.

“Well, Drack and Kesh  _ meant _ it, but… people just don’t care. Not the sort of people I deal with,” she responded, visibly (audibly) distressed.

Ryder covered her three-fingered hand with his own. “I do,” he responded quietly, hoping it wouldn’t be too much.

“Thank you, Scott,” she looked at him. “I haven’t even been with you for that long, but I feel like I belong.” She didn’t pull away. “Uh. I mean, haven’t been on your team.”

“I don’t mind,” he smiled, fairly certain she’d be blushing if she could. He really liked her like this. Or when she was laughing. Or, to be honest, pretty much every time he’d seen her. “It’s good having you around, Vetra.”

“Here’s to sticking together!,” the smuggler raised her glass, suddenly cheerful. Ryder felt his own whiskey kick in with a new force and happily accepted the toast.

`````

The last thing he could remember was Brecka, the Russian cryo manager appearing at their table with a large jug of something transparent, a burning sensation in his throat, Vladimir complaining about nobody wanting to take responsibility for anything and leaving it all to him, and Vetra pouring herself another glass of the dual-chirality (or rather, chirality-free) ethanol.

Still, Scott was fairly certain he was missing something. Leaving his new helmet in the room for now, he ventured out into the washroom, and once that was done (he really did have too much to drink last night), toward the cargo bay. After all, he wasn’t drinking alone, and perhaps turians, or at least that particular turian, didn’t get amnesia from idiotic amounts of intoxicants.

He could hear yelling all the way from here, and could see Vetra and Liam through the glass.

“Ryder!” Liam was mighty pissed. “She dragged a kid out here!”

“Screw you Kosta! She had a choice!” Vetra looked fully prepared to claw out the human’s eyes. Which she likely could easily pull off. Especially if she took her gloves off first.

“Some choice - come here, or lose you!,” the human wasn’t going to wind down anytime soon.

“Hold on, Sid? She seemed alright,” Ryder responded, hoping to defuse the situation. Yeah, and the Scourge is going to just fall apart like a regular planetside cloud.

“Oh, suuure,” Liam sounded like a 12-year-old basic human girl as he stormed off toward his room, “side with your girlfriend!”

Stunned silence was his answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cliffhanger!


	13. 13: Amnesia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder tries to piece together what happened, this time in a good company.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This one was originally supposed to be a part of the previous chapter, but ended up a lot bigger than expected.

For a few minutes, Vetra just stood there staring at Scott, and Scott staring at Vetra. Eventually, the smuggler grabbed the Pathfinder by the sleeve and pulled him into the arsenal. He didn’t resist. He was too terrified of the myriad possibilities for something to have gone horribly wrong somewhere along the way, or to go wrong right now.

“What in the spirits’ name happened yesterday?,” the turian loud-whispered, even though they were in private. Scott couldn’t help but notice how good that sounded before he remembered he had a problem here.

“I don’t know,” he answered, “I was going to ask you that.”

“Right. Shit.”

“So, uh, did we..?”

“I think I’d notice.”

“So, what  _ did _ we do?,” he wondered.

“Well, I think we had fun,” she turian-smiled at him. “Want to…,” her voice wavering a little, maybe in uncertainty, “ do that again... sometime?”

Scott could barely believe his luck. “Of course!,” he replied, hoping he isn’t sounding  _ too  _ enthusiastic, “but now I’m curious just what we are going to do again.”

“Well,” Vetra asked, “what do you remember?”

“We went to the bar,” he recounted, “talked about… family, I guess, then…”

“That we were glad to… know each other?,” she not-quite-asked, looking quite flustered to a human eye.

“Yeah,” Ryder responded, feeling his cheeks redden, “and the next thing I remember is Brecka and his ethanol.”

“Well, I just learned something new. Brecka’s ethanol, huh? Explains the headache,” the turian winced. He wondered if she had prior experience. “I can tell you what we were doing before he showed up,” she was almost giggling.

“Okay, what?” The Pathfinder couldn’t tell if he really wanted to know.

“Dancing,” Vetra finally laughed out loud. The look on his face must be truly priceless.

“Together?”

“Yeah,” she nodded. “Tango.”

That was something new. “You know tango?,” he asked, “ ‘Cause I sure as hell don’t.”

“Learned it for a heist and it kind of, you know... stuck,” she responded with a wave of her hand.

“So we just danced,” Scott could still barely believe he was willing to dance, even drunk to amnesia (and even with such a partner), “the entire time?”

“All that I can remember,” the smuggler confirmed, “but then again, I don’t remember any ethanol either.”

“And that still doesn’t explain how I ended up with a helmet in my bed,” Ryder ignored her weird look. “Maybe someone had seen us? And maybe it was Kosta?”

“I’m not talking to that bastard unless I have to,” she spat out, and continued more calmly, “but I bumped into him when I was getting our drinks. He’s only seen us at the bar. Someone on the ship, maybe?”

He considered the possibilities for a second. “I guess we could go ask?”

`````

As luck would have it, Drack was leaning against a wall in the cargo bay, the bones on his armor seemingly denting the wall. Ryder decided some holes in the ship was an acceptable tradeoff for having a krogan.

“Hey Drack,” he greeted, “have you, by any chance, seen us yesterday?”

“Nah, I with Kesh and just got back,” the old man rumbled. “What did you runts do anyway?”

Scott and Vetra shared a look. “We don’t know,” they spoke in unison. Neither intended it, of course.

“Hah,” the krogan laughed, “Reminds me of the first time I had ryncol.”

“There was a first time?,” Scott asked, only really half-joking. Hell knows what the krogan do. Wouldn’t be beyond them to put that drain cleaner in baby bottles.

“Believe it or not, yeah. It’s my  _ first _ memory, though. More like the lack of it.”

`````

Next up was the medbay, or rather its inhabitant, who was presently typing away at a terminal, probably hard at work on kett breeding rates or something like that.   
“Pathfinder, Vetra,” she turned around and nodded.

This time, it was the turian who popped the big question.

“I haven’t, and why? What were you doing? And together?”

“We don’t know,” they answered, this time not even all that surprised at the sudden unity. Lexi was, though, and made an expression that would go down in history. Ryder was pretty sure Vetra covertly snapped a picture with her visor.

The asari regained her composure with the haste of a professional psychiatrist. “You were drinking, weren’t you?,” she pinched the bridge of her nose, looking very much like Addison, and dug around in her desk drawers. “Here’s painkillers for you, and for you,” she handed each of them a pill, “and you should really do yoga instead.”

Outside, Vetra got curious. “What even is ‘yoga’?”

“It’s like… poses,” Scott replied. “Painful ones.”

“And?”

“And you just sit there, pretty much.”

She shook her head. “You squishy people are weird.”

“Hey!,” Ryder exclaimed in mock offence, “I’m not doing it.”

“Fine,” the turian laughed, “our doctor is weird.”

`````

The two ascended up the ladder next to the glass bridge, the human (jokingly) offering Vetra a hand, which she accepted, to his great surprise. Not that Scott was complaining, even if he  _ did _ almost get pulled down instead of helping her up.

Neither Kallo nor Suvi have seen anything (the synchronous “we don’t know” was starting to get kinda old by now), Peebee spent the entire time in her apartment, apparently whacking the Remnant trinket with a wrench or something to that tune, and Ryder refused to speak to Cora right now.

Gil, on the other hand, turned out to be just who the pair was looking for.

“Aye!,” waas his answer to their usual question. “I thought we brought something along with us when you two showed up.”

“Brought something along?,” the Pathfinder squinted questioningly, and the engineer was quick to vent.

“You were hanging off of each other like a four-legged monster. Scared the shit out of me, too. I’m kinda curious what you were up to, ya know?,” the engineer winked.

Scott and Vetra looked each other in the eyes for a second, and this time their “We don’t know,” well, it was very much expected, as was Gil’s laughter.

`````

The two returned to her room.

“So,” the human spoke, “we had a talk, got shitfaced, apparently danced, and then what?”

The quartermaster thought for a bit, an absolutely endearing expression on her face. “Seems like we left the bar…”

“Clinging to each other, apparently,” Ryder put in, but the turian ignored him.

“... made it to the Tempest, scared Gil, and crawled off to our rooms,” she finished. An awkward silence filled the room. “Sooo,” she half-whistled rather like an Earth bird.

“That was fun,” Scott picked up, “let’s do it again!” He was  _ really _ hoping she would agree. Yeah, she was good to be around, even though he’d only known her for about a day, and even though she was a horrible spiky monster.

The man couldn’t, and truth be told, didn’t exactly want to hide his joy at Vetra’s nod.

“Well, we agreed to, haven’t we?,” she… probably that was “reassured” there, picking up on his expression.

The Pathfinder bid his goodbye and headed up to the bridge, his spirits lifted. There were plenty of paths to find, and a very curious marker on the Remnant map.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're getting closer to the fun stuff.


	14. 14: Take Me To Your Leader

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder meets a rival and some new hopefully-friends.

The ride over to the uncharted system promised to be a nice easy coast for Ryder, though slightly less so for Kallo as he had to go around the Scourge at some point. And indeed it was, chatting away with the bridge crew, and, once, going down to the kitchen for a coffee. That is, until their merry FTL flying was interrupted by a Big Dumb Object appearing out of nowhere. They dropped and, oh joy, were faced with what looked to be a dreadnaught, with the signature kett green and curves. Make that  _ four _ dreadnaughts, plus an entire fucking lot of small craft.

“Kallo,” the Pathfinder yelled, “get out of here!”

“The Kett have taken control of our systems, Pathfinder,” SAM spoke through the speakers, perhaps a bit calmer than would be appropriate, but then again, he wasn’t the one about to get blasted to pieces. “They are scanning the ship with what appears to be a biometrics scanner.”

Scott figured they still had a chance if the boneheads wanted them alive. “SAM, get the ground team to suit up.” He tried to head towards the gear lockers himself, but was interrupted by a comms screen popping up.

“Where is the one that interfaced with the Remnant!,” the comms spoke, a bit angrily for his taste, “We know it is on this ship.”

Ryder decided making it worse would be hard and answered with a simple and traditional “who the hell are you?”

“We are the Archon,” the individual on the screen answered in an arrogant tone. “We rule the Kett in Heleus.”

“I attempting to regain control of the Tempest,” a digital voice spoke in his head. “Keep him distracted.”

“What do you want from me?” was a safe bet here.

“That one does not know what it is intruding upon!,” the Archon yelled, spitting on the camera. “The Remnant, the Ancients, respond to it! It is UNWORTHY!”

The lights flickered ominously. The comms screen closed up, and the view outside the panoramic window shifted. The pilot was tapping away at his console, heading for… the Scourge clouds. Makes sense. The four dreadnaughts would not be following them. The fighters would be, though.

Cora elected just the right moment to poke through the door. “I wish Sarissa was here! She would have had a plan!” A loud bang sounded out from the stern, the lights flickered, and - ouch! The door tried to close, but couldn’t, because someone was standing in it. Scott found himself a lot more worried about someone else though, because the downright nasty sound came from her direction. That, though, was downright stupid of him. Or maybe it wasn’t? He decided to take proactive action instead of worrying and vaguely noticed Cora trying to climb down the ladder to the medbay without aggravating her fresh bruises.

“SAM, what was that sound?,” the human found himself sounded worried, though it was normal for someone in a ship about to fall the fuck apart, wasn’t it?

“We have lost a secondary sensor array, Pathfinder,” the speakers responded. “No atmosphere loss,” the AI continued, “and no crew injuries.” Maybe he could read the host’s mind after all?

Just then, they made a final turn, a star came into view, and the resident salarian announced they were in the clear, with no bonehead fighters making it through the angry death cloud. And rather conveniently, the shortcut through the Scourge ended at the system they were originally headed to. Gil would need some time to patch the ship up enough to get back to the Nexus, and the Pathfinder could take, hm, Peebee (because she was the foremost expert on Remnant) and Vetra (because, let’s face it, he enjoyed the company) to check out whatever Remnant ruin this system had.

`````

The ground team gathered up on the bridge, wanting to learn more about what the hell just happened and to thank the pilot for pulling their asses out of the fire. He, in turn, was a little terrified at Drack’s pat on the back.

Ryder went to suit up while Kallo was taking the ship down. The planet seemed to only be mostly covered in lava, with an almost perfectly circular lush area, which still did not lend itself to walking around unarmored. Who knows what kind of things roam around in there, guarding what most likely was another one of these Remnant bunkers.

`````

He was just quick enough to make it back to the bridge in time to see a very fat-looking, visibly armed craft swoop down right in front of the Tempest. A voice came on the radio, spewing slightly hostile gibberish. 

“We’re the intergalactic good guys, I swear!,” Scott replied, eliciting all sorts of laughter behind him, and, more curiously, over the radio as well. Maybe they could understand him after all. Wouldn’t that be hilarious.

“Ryder, they’re forcing us to land,” Kallo reported, maybe more than a little bit terrified.

“Well,” Scott nodded, “that’s what we wanted to do anyway.”

The ship nosed down, and a very pretty city came into view.

`````

“So, I guess you go talk to them now?,” Liam suggested helpfully.

“That’s what the  _ protocol _ says,” Cora pitched in. “But the Huntresses…”

“Yeah, and then they nuke us all back to where you belong,” Drack growled back. Seriously, what the  _ fuck,  _ Harper?

“If they haven’t shot us by now, that means they don’t want to,” Ryder decided. “I’m going to talk to them.”

“Just the most important thing ever,” Liam chuckled. “No pressure.”

Yeah, right, no pressure. “Look, if I get eaten alive, even if it’s hilarious - please, destroy the recordings.”

Scott really didn’t need to see the resident turian tapping her visor.

`````

The Pathfinder wasn’t surprised by the armed welcoming committee. In fact, it was rather comforting to have so many guns pointed, but, for once, not fired at him. A more civil-looking welcoming committee was waiting for him at the top of some stairs. Judging by their foot-mitts, the species has been tree-climbing primates at some point, much like his own, and they possessed some very human faces, albeit with skin tones more in line with the asari, as well as some really weird necks that reminded him of Earth cobra snakes.

One of the soldiers tapped a wrist computer of some kind, and SAM spoke up. “They are sending a Milky Way translator dictionary. Integrating.”

The governor introduced herself, mentioned the exiles (that explains the dictionary), and was interrupted by a soldier arriving. The one referred to as Jaal had quite the scar (seems like a burn, something hot, like the kett rifle currently sitting in the Tempest’s locker), a marksman’s one-eye visor, and a… cape? Or suspenders? He also had a different, much bluer, uniform from the security grunts. And apparently, someone called Evfra wanted to take jurisdiction.

Ryder sighed and followed the governor through the city.

  
  



	15. 15: La Résistance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder meets the local military and makes a new friend... maybe.

The city was very pretty indeed, he could give the angara (as Ryder has learned the locals were called) that, and they didn’t eat him yet. Though maybe this “Resistance” of theirs was headquartered at a bar or something, complete with the requisite roasting-jack for intrepid explorers. The crowds lining the streets were divided on whether he was an “it” or a “he” (nobody seemed to think he was a “she”, which was probably a good thing) and some of the people were getting quite jumpy. Literally. The Pathfinder couldn’t tell if that was because they were excited or because they couldn’t see.

The governor explained some things about the kett, the exiles, and how the Resistance (Scott couldn’t help but think it with a thick French accent) tied into it. This Evfra (de Tershaav, apparently - the angara didn’t seem to be too into last names, but that doesn’t make the whole enterprise sound any less French) was in charge, and he was apparently a hardass. Paaran Shie, the governor, had to work with him a lot, seeing as how this entire planet was hiding from the boneheads, and was willing to share that he was  _ not _ going to like Ryder.

Once inside the HQ building, Jaal the caped… marksman? Yeah, marksman, judging by the trophy of a sniper rifle he was now wielding, took over the “tour” and looked over Ryder curiously.

“Our experience with the kett makes us distrustful of all aliens,” the “guide” remarked, noticing the looks some of the workers were giving to the human.

“We’ve had our own run-ins with the kett,” Scott nodded, “and our own war.” That last bit was probably not such a hot idea.

“And what happened in this... war?,” Jaal inquired, looking straight at him. Mentioning that was definitely a bad move.

“Well, one of these aliens my species fought is on my ship,” the Pathfinder replied, hoping to make a good impression. “It was a misunderstanding.”

The angara made a “hmpf” noise and motioned to a door.

“Kadara be damned, I won’t lose Voeld!,” a voice exclaimed as they entered. Must be the big boss - thank god, spirits, and the Enkindlers the accent wasn’t French at all. Even more interestingly, he mentioned Kadara, where the exiles have apparently set up shop.

“Evfra, this is one of the aliens from the,” Jaal paused, “Meelkie Whae - a Pathfinder.”

The commander, sporting a badass scar of his own and a skin skin tone very similar to that of an asari, turned away from a display and gave Ryder a disapproving look. “ ‘Pathfinder’,” he sneered. “It’s an aggressive move, coming to Aya.”

“Well, all I can say is, I’m sorry and I didn’t know you were here,” Scott decided to be his natural self.

“You did not know?,” the angara seemed quite perplexed (both of them, actually), “ Why  _ did _ you come then?”

“You seem to know of our journey through dark space, correct? We couldn’t settle a planet we call Eos due to environmental conditions, but I explored some kind of ancient bunker and activated it, which started cleaning up the atmosphere. We also found a star chart that showed an active terraformer here.”

“ ‘Remnant’. Recent intelligence supports that claim,” the marksman pitched in, and Evfra turned to a window, nodding.

“You’re right,” he said, motioning the Pathfinder closer. “We do have a Vault here. It was shut years ago, and the entrance hidden.” The commander took a deep breath. This is either going to be a big break or a failure. “We… can’t help you.”

“The Moshae could,” Jaal offered. “She’s our most revered scientist and elder,” he explained for the explorer’s benefit. “She knows this vault.”

Evfra turned from the window, so quick Ryder heard his  _ something _ snap, crackle and pop. “But now the kett have her, and our rescue attempts have failed. She’s lost to us.” His head turned to the human. “And you,” he added, a bit aggressively, but Scott could give him that - this Moshae person sounded popular.

“Maybe I could help?,” he offered, maybe a bit too confidently because his track record so far was a few curbstomped patrols and outposts, but  _ they _ didn’t know that, did they?

“Arrogant,” Evfra snapped, “I don’t know you, let alone trust you, why would I want your help?” Yeah, how about a nice tall glass of nope.

“Evfra,” Jaal interrupted softly, “I feel… Evfra, what this alien says is extraordinary.” The commander was looking at him curiously now. “The Moshae wouldn’t want to let this chance pass.”

“Jaal. You talk too much,” the man in charge replied, though even a human could see he was getting swayed.

“Let me assess this… alien. I’ll be your eyes. I know you can spare me.” Hm, if this works, that’s certainly something to file for later - the marksman is important enough to be an observer, but is expendable?

“Pah,” the commander went to leave, but threw over his shoulder, “Go if you want. But when he tries to kill you, be prepared to strike first.” What a charmer.

Jaal shrugged and looked at Scott purposefully. “I am Jaal Ama Darav. I will be your envoy through angaran space.”

“Thanks for trusting me,” the human smiled.

“I don’t. But, I can always kill you in your sleep,” the “envoy” replied, and held a perfectly straight face for all of five seconds, until he snorted under the Pathfinder’s stare and they both burst out laughing, drawing stares from the Resistance workers in the room.

This was going to be good.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6ljFaKRTrI


	16. 16: Pre-Cooling

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pathfinder prepares to visit an alien battlefield.

“Right, so,” Ryder began his “briefing”, “we’ve run into a bit of a problem. There is indeed a Vault on Aya, but...”

“A ‘Vault’?,” Peebee interrupted, tearing her gaze away from Jaal, who was doing his best to look comfortable, casual, and not the least bit disturbed by a collection of aliens, some of them even bonier than kett, by slouching in a seat.

“That’s what the angara call this sort of bunker we found. Oh, and speaking of angara - this is Jaal Ama Darav,” the Pathfinder motioned to the man in question, who nodded slightly. “He will be our envoy through angaran space.”

“Is he the problem, kid?,” Drack rumbled, causing the angara to perk up and look at the krogan, who quickly realized his mistake and did his best to look apologetic. Well, as much as a krogan with tusks on his chin could.

“He’s kidding, Jaal,” Scott placated. “The problem is, they locked down and hid this Vault. One scientist knows where it is, but she’s been kidnapped by the kett.”

“So we rescue her!” Liam was, in his typical fashion, ready to just do it, whatever “it” may be, and Ryder generally agreed with him in this case, except there were some small issues.

“That is exactly what the Pathfinder offered,” Jaal worked up the courage to speak, “but we do not know where she is being held and Evfra does not trust you.”

Ryder picked up on his team’s unease. “We are now going to a planet the angara call Voeld. The Resistance is fighting kett on the ground, and we may be able to help them out.”

Now that he gave it a bit of thought, he’d never seen Cora  _ not _ attempt to cause a problem.

“We need outposts, Ryder,” the commando pointedly ignored Jaal, ” This isn’t helping us.”

Scott opened his mouth, but, of course, as was to be expected of a krogan, the resident ancient warrior agreed, mostly. “Y’know, she’s right, kid,” he addressed the Pathfinder, “I could kill kett all day, but I don’t see how that helps  _ us _ .”

The human sighed and opened his mouth yet again, and got shut up again, this time by Vetra. “It’s a trade,” she mused, “we help them, they help us.” Well that was nice, someone being reasonable. Oh, and Liam’s nodding at her, surprisingly enough, not that it’s a bad thing.

“Yeah, that,” Ryder said, “and besides, there’s no reason not to do it. You can go, come talk to me if you have a problem. Oh, and Jaal will be living and working in the tech lab. Any questions?”

There were none, and the crew dispersed, Cora leaving last after a lingering stare at the angara, who not-quite ran off to the lab. Yeah, that’s who should’ve become the Pathfinder, the woman who, one, will do anything an asari tells her to and two, wants to find a Second Contact War to start. She was, at this point, somehow managing to be more warmongery than the krogan warlord. Scott thought about asking Drack about his pacifistic (for a krogan, i.e. not wanting to solve every problem with more bloody murder) ways, but realized it would not be very polite to walk up to someone (a half-ton someone) and ask “hey, your species just wants to kill everything, why aren’t you like that?” Plus, there was a new guy to check on.

`````

Jaal was perched on a chair in the tech lab, fiddling with an omni-tool, a positively ancient-looking touchscreen in a pocket on his forearm, and some kind of blue holographic ball thingy. Simultaneously. By the looks of it, he was too engrossed in his work to notice someone walking in.

“Hello?,” the Pathfinder greeted, causing the marksman to look up.

“Ah, Pathfinder,” he greeted, “I am just calibrating this… omni-tool you gave me. We prefer to keep our, hm, devices, separate, but this is.... convenient. In a way.”

“What do you mean?,” Ryder asked, not quite understanding the point, but also curious about their tech.

“This,” Jaal pointed at the sphere, “is my personal communicator. And this,” he pointed at the touchscreen, “is my suit’s combat computer. You just have one omni-tool.” That made sense.

“Well, I’m not an expert, but I think the tool just acts as an interface for the armor’s own computer and for fabrication.” The angara looked a little perplexed, but nodded.

“Are you here to ask me something?,” he offered, and it was the human’s turn to nod.

“Yeah, I just wanted to confirm you're going to be on the ground squad.”

Jaal smirked. “I am here because I am a Resistance officer. I rarely miss.”

“That’s good to know. Be ready. I’m taking you to Voeld,” Ryder said, ”Oh, and there was this guy at the docks on Aya - a trader. He wants me to check on his workers and a missing shipment on Voeld. You hear anything about that?”

“No,” the bevisored (is that even a word?) man shook his head. “And Scott,” he hesitated, “I would like to find out more about your history?”

It took the Pathfinder a second to figure out why that’s a question. “Oh, sure,” he finally responded, “just ask SAM to transfer something on the topic to you.” Seems like he thought he wouldn’t be  _ allowed _ to know, or at least that was Ryder’s interpretation of it. Upon further reflection, it wasn’t a given that he  _ would _ be allowed access to that information.

These thoughts were interrupted. “You mentioned a… war?,” Jaal iquired. “Could you explain that?”

Scott’s questionable decisions were coming back to bite him in the ass. “Well,” he began, “humans just figured out interstellar flight and - there were ancient devices that sort of teleported things between each other, and we started just turning on every one we found.”

The envoy listened, his eyebrows rising, but did not ask questions, and the human continued.

“Eventually, the explorers ended up in a system that was being patrolled by the turian fleet. As it turned out, the pangalactic government prohibited opening the relays willy-nilly, the turians got spooked, and started shooting. The war lasted three months, they managed to occupy a human colony, got surprised by the human fleet that turned out to actually exist just in case, had their ass kicked and started gearing up for full-scale war. The Council caught wind of it and brokered peace. That was about thirty years before we left, so I wasn’t around for it. I did get taught about it in school. The teacher was an asari and she almost started the Second Contact War then and there.”

‘Uh,” Jaal said after a pause, “I understand. Most of it. I think. What’s “‘willy-nilly?”’

“An idiom.”

“Oh.”

“It means “‘without prior consideration,’” pretty much.”

“I… will remember that. Thank you, Scott. I’ll be ready when we reach Voeld,” the angara nodded and turned away, clearly indicating that this conversation was over. The Pathfinder had no reason to act otherwise.

`````

Ryder found both of the people he was going for in the crew quarters, Drack absentmindedly poking at the info board and Vetra doing something at the desk.

“Your take on the angara, old man?,” she asked suddenly, and Drack was quick to answer.

“Strong. Honorable. Survivors. Been a while since I encountered a new friendly species. Last time was the humans.”

“Oh yeah, you lived through first contact with them, didn’t you?”

The krogan laughed. “If I recall correctly me exact words were: They are bold for being so squishy. Do they know they’re mostly water?”

“Ooh, harsh,” Vetra replied, looked straight at Scott, lifted a mandible and, though he couldn’t be sure behind the visor, maybe even winked at him. “Don’t let Ryder hear you.”

“He’s here, isn’t he,” Drack rumbled resignedly.

“Yes on both counts,” the man said. “Where’s your situational awareness, old man? If you aren’t careful, something will sneak up on you and..,” Scott pulled back a fist, “Oww, eat you.”

“Hah! I don’t need to be careful, the things that want a snack need to be careful!”

The Pathfinder’s hand throbbed and he was pretty sure the krogan was joking, so he laughed and went to have a little chat with his quartermaster.

`````

“So, Vetra,” Ryder began, “I’ve heard turians don’t like cold.”

“Yeah, so?,” she looked at him with a browplate raised.

“Voeld is pretty cold. Like, hazardously cold. For humans.” He shivered. Eos really was his favourite of the planets he’d been to so far: it was  _ warm _ .

“So?”

“I was wondering if you’d want to sit this one out,” he asked, a little too-desperately hoping that she doesn’t think he’s trying to _ get rid _ of her.

“Oh! No,” she shook her head, “if you need me, I’m going. I’ll just try to warm up a bit more.”

“That’s great,” Ryder said, “Thanks.”

The two stood there, one smiling like an idiot and the other with her mandibles fluttering, until Drack coughed, at which point the human jumped out of the room, the old krogan laughing behind him, and the turian’s head hung in embarrassment.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *That* took me a while to deal with. Life likes to happen.


	17. 17: Out Into The Cold

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ryder arrives on Voeld.

The obvious course of action from here was for the Pathfinder to retreat to his quarters and spend the next half hour repainting his new helmet and stripping the N7 markings. That was where SAM popped out of the QEC on Ryder’s desk.

“A moment, Pathfinder?,” he addressed through the speakers.

“Yeah, SAM?” Scott felt a little guilty. He more or less ignored the AI’s presence for quite a while.

“You have stripped the insignia from Alec’s helmet.”

Ryder was sure this one would bring him a lot of flak from an entire lot of different people. “I did.”

“I did not expect you to,” SAM said after a brief pause.

“Why not?,” the man started feeling a little confrontational.

“To my knowledge, organics often try to honor the memory of the fallen.”

Scott Ryder was sure this was only the first of many such talks. Still, better to make peace with the AI in your head. “Stealing Dad’s accomplishments is not honoring his memory.” SAM surely did know about stolen valor, right?

“It is my belief that he would have wanted you to keep the N7,” SAM stated, like an indisputable fact, which, upon further consideration, it was.

“Plus, I’m supposed to be an explorer, not a soldier,” Scott added, “and, really, a… let’s say unitary one at that. A human special forces insignia doesn’t go well with that, does it?”

“Your points are valid, Scott,” the AI agreed, “That is all.”

“Wait, SAM? I feel like I’m forgetting something,” the human decided to make use of the not-fully-called-for observer in his head.

“You have not reported the first contact with angara,” said observer noted dutifully, and switched into Ryder’s implant as he raced toward the conference area. “Additionally, you have not yet reported our findings on the murder case. You have also agreed to run miscellaneous favors on Eos.”

The Pathfinder spent the rest of the way to Voeld getting yelled at over the QEC and was quite grateful for the arrival.

`````

The world the Initiative originally thought to be a temperate one was now a gray, icy shitball - with most of the population now retreated into a few major cities and a handful of outposts, according to Jaal, and some of the old cities still frozen into the ice. All the “nice” weather made for some turbulence and the near-crash experience on landing wasn’t very fun, but the Tempest was safely parked behind the local Resistance HQ, and Ryder took Jaal, who was feeling right at home in the -50 weather, and Vetra, who was glad to leave Drack’s ribbing behind, even if it meant going out into the cold. The guards sent to check on their arrival might have stared a bit, and Jaal might have laughed his ass off at the human and turian literally hugging heaters on the way, but the trio made it to the base itself without even needing to shoot anything. The local commander was notified of their arrival and was apparently an acquaintance of Jaal’s, and more or less told them to bugger off and do whatever they like as long as it doesn’t get anyone killed. Anyone of her people, that is. The intelligence officer was more helpful, pointing out some very interesting places, like the two angaran settlements (apparently called “daars”), a kett concentration camp and their base. Even more helpfully, he refused to point out any specific Remnant ruins on the basis that you could throw a rock anywhere in the area and, likely as not, attract the wrath of a metal flying laser octopus. Surprisingly, nobody objected to the Pathfinder scanning every piece of technology he could find, and once that was done, he headed toward an exit from the cave the Resistance set up shop in. Just outside, a sniper team was set up with another one of these hugworthy heaters and a rifle that made Scott feel inadequate. The ubiquitous two-man (or in this case, man-and-woman) sniper team was a staple of every known military even in the age of VI-assisted targeting. The precise reasons for the composition were many: the necessity for a dedicated observer who could look around without taking aim off the target, a sufficiently large rifle being utterly useless at closer ranges, and (though the textbooks never mentioned that, Ryder knew it from experience) the sniper getting lonely. A conversation between the two drew his attention, and not only his, by the look on Jaal’s face.

“You talk to it,” the woman said, “I don’t want to talk to it.”

“Don’t be silly, Beniska,” the man tried to whisper (at which he hilariously failed) over the blizzard , “and I think they can hear us.”

“Well I’m, not talking to it! You talk to it!”

Jaal had enough. “Scott has a name,” he spoke in a tone well suited to the weather.

“You  _ named _ it?!,” the woman screeched.

Jaal’s heavy breathing and Vetra’s snickering made a great combination as the human dragged them towards the Nomad somehow deposited on the ledge and away from someone starting a fight on his behalf.

`````

There were some boneheads trying to follow an injured Resistance fighter on their way down. These guys went down quick, and Ryder got a feel for Jaal’s combat ability, which seemed perfectly in line with the rest of the team. The human helped his quartermaster toss anything remotely valuable the kett patrolmen had into the rover, earning them some looks from the angara, but it was all okay and they drove off towards the smaller settlement without further diplomatic incidents.

“Scott,” the marksman addressed out of the blue, “I’ve noticed you have a kett rifle.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “picked it up from a fight back on Eos. Why, you want to start a club or something?”

“No,” the baffled angara responded, “I’m just… curious. It is unusual for the Resistance to use the enemy’s weapons.”

“It was a good opportunity,” Vetra added her own explanation. “You should’ve seen the scorch marks where he tested it.”

“I have seen plenty of these,” Jaal said quietly. It took both of the others a minute to figure out why, and by that time they could see the hole in a snowbank that served as the daar’s entrance.

  
  



	18. 18: First Base

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Pathfinder stages an all-out assault (or two).

Ryder was kind of freezing his everything off. The kett really could pick a good spot for a labour camp - the one where someone’s uncle was apparently being kept was also the one they heard about from the desk jockey at the Resistance base. Quite conveniently for any attackers (i.e. the Pathfinder and Co.), there was a bunch of giant ice shards piled up at a distance perfect for sniping. Inconveniently for the human, the ice was pretty damn cold to lie on. He decided close combat would be the better option here, and besides, Jaal was the one without a short rifle. Leaving the marksman behind (he didn’t seem to mind the cold too much), he gratefully jumped into the relatively-warm Nomad and set off to cause a ruckus from somewhere closer to the heat lamps he could see in the camp.

`````

The camp presented a new challenge - the easily-visible-but-still-annoying “invisible” kett - as Jaal called them, the Destined. The blue mist kind of gave them away, and it wasn’t like Vetra even needed to  _ see _ her targets. Scott was thinking that: 1. It’s suspiciously easy and 2. Maybe he should get a machinegun too.

Jaal caught up with the pair quickly enough and proved to be a calming presence for the now-former prisoners who just got rescued by some aliens of the sort more commonly associated with criminal scum who got kicked off the Nexus. The Pathfinder was quite glad he decided to wait for the angara to show up before opening the cages - some of the people inside were looking a little jumpy and, although none of them would say it to his face, there would probably have been violence.

One of the prisoners - as luck would have it, it was the exact uncle they were sent for, had some kett codes - he asked the human to take them to the bigger of the two settlements around here, Techiix, apparently focusing on science and tech, where they could find something to do with them. Scott marvelled at the linguistic coincidence, agreed to do it, and everyone went on their merry way (ways?)

`````

“I’m on it,” Scott replied with a nod and in his badass-est voice when the Resistance officer (who also doubled as the rescued agent’s sister and seemed to be quite pissed at him for not even calling) informed him, in a somewhat panicked manner, that the codes were for the kett base nearby and also about to change.

Which is exactly how the Pathfinder ended up in a dark ice cave.

“Right, let’s not get stuck in an ice cave,” he voiced his thoughts.

“Aw, Ryder,” Vetra responded with badly-faked disappointment in her voice, “you don’t want to spend some time together?”

The human opened his mouth for a clever retort, but was interrupted. “Perhaps here isn’t the place for that, Vetra?,” Jaal half-inquired, half-stated, perhaps unsure of if the Milky Way species considered such a place appropriate for a nice picnic.

“Nevermind Jaal,” the turian sighed, “we’re just joking.”

“Juuust joking,” Scott echoed with a chuckle. “It’s a little cold for a party here.”

Conveniently, the next turn of the snaking cave unveiled a warm orange glow, which the thoroughly-frozen Milky Way natives learned to love over the course of their visit to Voeld. Of course, it also meant more kett to fight, but it was well worth the effort.

`````

The Resistance tech knew her stuff - she broke the encryption and transmitted the codes to Ryder just as the last of the guards at the shield-protected rear entrance fell. What came next was essentially a shooting gallery for anyone armed with a sniper rifle. A slope that Sara would surely want to take some skis down (she always was the one more suited to cold), with scarcely any cover for the boneheads to hide behind. The human switched to his Widow and took the head off an Anointed heavy. Jaal was doing much the same thing while Vetra unloaded on a cloud of blue smoke with her Cyclone, her tech armor glowing blue, diverting attention away from the rest of the team. The Pathfinder took down a few more grunts with the big rifle (reloading after every show was a bit of a pain) and took aim once again, waiting for some hapless bonehead to stick his head out.

A sudden cry of “Grenade!” made the words “tunnel vision” come to mind as he looked to his side at the little ball of doom starting to glow in the snow and tried to jump away from it. The next thing Scott felt was an impact as he went sliding on the icy surface with a turian on top of him (she sure as hell wasn’t light.) Feeling the edge of the cliff under his shoulder, he tried to stop himself, and, surprisingly enough, succeeded without falling off a mountain, probably thanks to his armor having a bunch of edges and corners, and also because one Vetra Nyx was pinning the lower three-quarters of his body to the ground.

She was now screaming “Are you all right?” through the helmet radio while frantically trying to pat down the heavily-armored human for any broken bones, which were thankfully absent as far as Ryder could tell.

“Are you all right?,” he responded in turn after getting enough air in his lungs to speak.

“Are you injured?,” Jaal ran up to them, having dispatched the last of the resistance… no,  _ bad _ word. The last of the  _ opposition _ .

“I am,” the woman nodded. “Ryder?” There was a bit less concern in her voice as she got up, and Scott breathed a sigh of relief. Whether or not he enjoyed the last few seconds, she was  _ not _ light.

“Yeah, I’m fine,” he responded, “just got the wind knocked out of me.”

“Sorry for squishing you, Pathfinder,” Vetra chuckled, seeing the absurdity of apologizing but still feeling sorry.

Scott looked at her with the best half-smile he could manage, undeterred by the fact that it would be concealed by his helmet. “Don’t worry,” he said in his flirtiest tone, “it was well worth it.”

This earned him another dual-toned chuckle but, before she could come up with an appropriate response, the resident angara decided to remind them where and why they were. “The path is clear for now, Scott,” he nodded up the slope now littered with headless kett.

“You’re right, let’s move up,” he picked up his miraculously-non-molten Widow. “I’d say stay frosty, but it’s already pretty cold here.”

“Oh, don’t remind me,” the turian quartermaster complained.

`````

The next area was carnage. As it turned out, the kett were at least smart enough not to charge down a slope where all of their guards got picked off and instead prepared a defence. Scott poking his head up the slope was rewarded with a barrage that didn’t blast all the way through anyone’s shields only by the sheer force of luck. As it turned out, Jaal also had some form of a cloaking device and the two of them were able to sneak around, stab a few guards each, and unleash coordinated chaos. The defenders, as was the general tendency, tried to get Vetra first (Ryder was beginning to think that was the exact reason tech armor came with holograms the way it did) and didn’t notice that two-thirds of the enemy force were actually behind them for some time. When they did, however, both of the infiltrators had to Hide And Hightail, regrouping with the smuggler and pushing into the control center together. More reinforcements came, by shuttle for some reason, and the long and short of it was that more things had to be bludgeoned than the Pathfinder would have liked, but the three managed to fight what seemed like a few hundred boneheads (plus a  _ very _ nasty turret) without anyone getting cooked, though all of their shields went down at least once and Ryder’s right shoulder had a few drops of metal on it from the wall that melted due to a close encounter with a kett plasma bolt. There were three generators to disable, and after each of them another, thankfully smaller, wave of kett showed up. Scott, being something of an engineer, began considering some sort of shoulder-fired contraption to just shoot down the shuttles instead of the individual enemies coming out of them. On the bright side, they came across a power conduit of some sort that SAM determined was responsible for keeping secure storage secure, blasted it to smithereens, and were rewarded with a room that Ryder thought made Vetra squeal a little bit. Jaal got to take in the sight of her stripping a place clean of anything that wasn’t bolted down and seemed somewhat surprised at being drafted as a pack mule, but accepted the random crap the other two deemed valuable without question. The quartermaster herself ended up picking up a sniper rifle and an extra handgun to get them to the ship. The squad spent some time looking for a way forward before finding a hole in the floor that they could jump down.

`````

The hangar where the boneheads made their last stand was even worse. Blowing up the three secure fuel terminals required running around all over the place like headless chickens, and with kett grunts around every corner it was easier said than done. The mildly invisible kett shotgunners were much more dangerous in the tight, dimly-lit spaces of the base and one of them managed to leave a dent in the Pathfinder’s heavy chestplate. Still, two of the fuel terminals went up in flames, and then the “Ascended” showed up. He (she? it?) called himself (same as previous) “Prefect”, and the floating ball was a hard target to hit. The laser-ray thing it fired cut through cover panels and left uncomfortably deep grooves in the walls and floors, and it soaked up a disturbing amount of fire until a tech detonation finally fried it, leaving the surprisingly sturdy and very teleport-y kett commander vulnerable… until he pulled a brand-new ball out of his ass (quite possibly literally, for nobody on the team, upon later discussion, had any idea where it came from) and they had to rinse and repeat. Thankfully, a well-placed shot decapitated the Ascended on the second cycle, at which point the few surviving grunts and heavies were easy work and the final fuel terminal sure made for a nice firework. Not a single enemy remained in the command center, Ryder shut down everything that could be shut down without the use of explosives, the tech from Techiix showed up with a shuttle to sift through the piles of intel in the kett base, and Scott, Vetra and Jaal (the Pathfinder liked this setup) rode off, unfortunately not into the sunset.

  
  



	19. 19: Triumphant Return

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hoo boy, that took a while.   
There's a five-time alliteration in here - see if you can find it.

Upon arrival on the Nexus, the Pathfinder inevitably found Director Tann giving a speech. Precisely  _ what _ the speech was on wasn’t entirely clear, but the angara probably played a key role in it. Scott contemplated going back to the ship and grabbing his armour with the very convenient cloaking device, because Tann would surely make him give a speech,  _ if _ he was seen. Fortunately, a turian caught his sight, carrying two crates stacked on top of each other. 

“Hey Vetra,” he greeted her with a smile, “need a hand?”

“If you want to,” she let Ryder grab the top one, “Thanks, Pathfinder.”

“What the hell is in these crates?,” the human questioned, “and how the hell did you carry them both by yourself?”

“Superior turian physique!,” the quartermaster boasted, spreading her shoulders and straightening up as much as she could with the remaining crate (some body language was truly universal, even among elcor.) “It’s just the stuff we found on Voeld. I kept the weapons and armor in case you want it.”

“Wait, all this is from Voeld?,” the man asked, flabbergasted. “How did we even get it back to the ship?”

“Smuggler’s secret,” she smiled smugly. “Uh, anyways, Scott…”

“Yeah?,” he raised an eyebrow at her.

“Want to go to the bar later?,” she was suddenly very interested in the lid of her crate.

“I’d rather not develop alcoholism, but sure,” Ryder chuckled.

“I could find someplace else to go,..” Vetra trailed off.

“Maybe later,” Scott decided not to make things difficult. “The bar will do for today.”

It was a perfect time to arrive at the store stalls, where the Pathfinder put down his crate, promised to meet his companion later, and headed off to the cultural centre.

`````

The VIs were, simply put, hilarious, especially the human and the pathfinder. Ryder set the latter to dish out unsolicited career advice. SAM and Cora were probably going to get on his nerves about it but ignoring everything that happened was working out so far and this  _ was _ a good job to have. Jaal was quietly planted in a corner with a large stack of datapads, so the human decided not to bother him and let the supposedly-professional cultural workers handle any First Contact and/or Rachni War and/or Krogan Rebellion and/or Quarian Exodus issues… now that the Pathfinder gave it a bit of a thought, Milky Way history was a little difficult to explain.

`````

Operations was quiet - no catastrophe was going on at the time, and the ones that happened earlier were more under control than ever before. Ryder thanked Brecka for the drinks last night and defrosted a block of salesmen - business was booming, and, if they played it right, it would boom even more once the angara got a little friendlier. The Pathfinder HQ, which Tann was using as something of an office, though not going as far as keeping the actual Pathfinder(s) out, was mostly empty with the exception of the Director, his secretary, and Cora Harper, leafing through a paper book that seemed to come straight from the Medieval - it took him a second to realize that it was in fact an asari combination prayer book/manual (precisely why these had to be combined was somewhat beyond Ryder.) He decided not to bother her and instead surveyed the holographic ships projected as something of a memorial to the old explorers of the old galaxy.

`````

Sid was more bored, and somehow more bouncy than last time. On the other hand, she was  _ really _ good for quickly finding out everything you wanted to know, and more. In the short minute or so that the Pathfinder spent in her vicinity before getting bailed out he learned that Prodromos was doing fine, but the nearby kett base was something of a bother, as were the Remnant and the wildlife. They were also reporting homemade pure water, the Nexus was now officially cloning and vat-growing things, and the Vortex kicked out any underage visitors, even if they weren’t caught with alcohol. That last bit was said just in time for the older sister to make a noise that seemed to be the turian equivalent of a tactful cough, leading the younger one to squeal and turn around in terror. Scott decided that the planter in the middle of the room was way more interesting than the stern talking-to Sidera Nyx was now receiving. God knows he’d gotten his share of these back in the (supposedly) Good (definitely) Old (figuratively) Days.

“I don’t even know what to do sometimes,” Vetra sighed as they got on the empty tram to Commons.

“About Sid? You can’t really do anything,” Ryder shook his head. “I was the exact same. You push, she will push back.”

“She’s always looking for trouble!,” the turian burst out. “And it’s going to find  _ her _ , and she’s going to get  _ hurt! _ ”

“I know you’re worried, Vetra. But you can’t protect her from everything,” the man said softly. “And the sooner she finds some trouble, the smaller it’s going to be.”

She raised her browplates at him in a wordless question.

“Look, I stopped a mugging when I was fourteen,” Scott sighed. “That did it for me and I never got around to setting a trashcan on fire.”

“What does that have to do with it?” The woman clearly wasn’t happy.

“I was looking for trouble and found it,” he explained. “Lucky for me, the one I found was actually  _ legal _ and the cop that dealt with it happened to be friends with my dad.”

“So that’s what a normal childhood looks like,” she muttered and slouched down in the seat, hiding the face in her hands. “I was too busy trying to survive.”

He placed a hand on her shoulder, hesitantly, which was kinda funny in hindsight - they were rolling around in the plasma not quite six hours ago and she was wearing some fairly solid shoulderpads. She still felt it, though, and twitched in surprise, but looked up and covered his with her other hand before the human could pull away.

“I’m sorry.”

“I just want a normal life for Sid.”

“You’re giving it to her,” Ryder nodded. “That stuff  _ is _ normal. For a human, at least.”

Vetra sighed again and moved the many silvery plates of her face around before settling into a different expression more like her usual one. “Well,” she tried to lighten a mood a little, “she  _ is _ into weird old human shit.”

Scott found nothing better than to pull her into a hug, taking care to avoid the turian’s very convenient waist.

“Thanks,” she whispered in his ear.

“Most things feel better if you squeeze them the right way.” That got a chuckle out of Vetra, exactly the reaction he hoped for. A night out on the town was exactly what the doctor ordered. Well, maybe not -  _ their  _ doctor would probably not be happy. For a good reason, too - if it was going to be anything like last night.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I feel like Vetra is angsting a little too much, but it also seems fitting for the occasions.


	20. 20: Advance

“Well,” Ryder continued his story, “the salarian pointed his gun at me. So I decided to get away and charged the turian. And let me tell you, never biotic-charge something harder than you.”  
“Huh,” Vetra squinted. “I had to get a prototype amp that could do that.”  
“The L-Five-N? It works a little differently,” the man explained. “That one actually pulls you toward the target. I push myself toward the target.”  
“So it’s the difference between a grappling hook and being kicked by a krogan.”  
“Yes.” He took a sip of his still-first drink. “Don’t hit yourself with a particularly strong biotic push.”  
The turian chuckled. “Don’t get caught by a krogan.”  
“Did you actually get kicked by a krogan?,” Scott raised an eyebrow.  
“Yeah.” She sighed. “I was young and he took pity on me.”  
“Took pity?”  
“Could have beaten me to a literal pulp and nobody would care. It wasn’t a good place.” He didn’t know what to say, but listening was good enough for his companion. “Sid was terrified.” The smuggler drained the remnants of her drink. “If we keep at this, we’ll both be alcoholics in no time flat.”  
“Uh, yeah,” the human agreed, “We should probably find a different activity.”  
“What was it called, yoga?,” Vetra remembered, “You know, the poses?”  
“Yes, that’s what it’s called, and no,I’m not doing it.” He spotted Liam at the bar, reminding him of an earlier part of the morning (these were the longest two days of his life.) “This might be a little awkward, but remember what Liam said?”  
“Look, Ryder,” the turian shook her head, “I swear I wouldn’t have gone if Sid said no.”  
“I know that, Vetra. But that’s not what I was talking about.”  
“Oh?”  
“He called you my girlfriend,” Scott said, feeling himself blush. It was probably a random fluke on the failed cop’s part. Hopefully. He was a failed cop, after all.  
“Well,” she flicked her mandibles, “I’ve been called worse things.”  
“So you’re not taking offence?,” the human asked, quite glad the lady didn’t consider the implication too egregious.  
“I might, later, when I see Kosta.” Vetra shifted in her seat, her silver face illuminated primarily by the ever-present visor. ” But not at you.”  
“Well, I sure am glad to hear that,” the Pathfinder chuckled. “Oh, by the way, he’s right over there.”  
“I don’t feel like causing a scene right now,” she shook her head. “Now, you promised to tell me the entire story.”  
It took him second to figure out what she was talking about. “Well, I bruised myself on the turian, but also knocked him on his ass. And would you guess what the salarian did?”  
“Tried to shoot you,” the thoroughly experienced smuggler suggested, “but hit the turian?”  
“Well, I'm pretty sure that’s what he tried to do,” Ryder smiled at the sound of a reverberating laugh, “but he did some weird thing instead and shot himself, in the foot, through his hand. Apparently penetration can be a bitch sometimes.”  
Vetra stopped laughing after a bit. “Something tells me the other one didn’t just give up.”  
“Well, you’re absolutely right,” he nodded. “He tried to do something, so I grabbed a mandible and pulled. So, yeah, that…,” Vetra’s own mandibles snapped tight, “sounded like it hurt.”  
“It did,” the Tempest’s resident turian confirmed. “A lot.” She must have noticed the human’s expression, hurriedly adding: “Never want to try for myself, but I’ve seen someone go into pain shock from that. ”  
“And the rest is pretty straightforward. All the gunfire and screaming attracted a C-Sec officer, and wouldn’t you know, it’s my dad’s buddy. He just called in a few ambulances and dragged me and the victim back to the headquarters. It was a good adventure until the ambassador showed up.”  
“The ambassador?”  
“Well, I was the son of an embassy worker,” Scott explained. “She took the fun out of it pretty quick. They let me go and I have no idea what became of anyone else involved.”  
Vetra looked intently at the empty glass in front of her, then at the myriad of bottles behind the bartender and evidently made a decision not to do anything about it. “And what was that about a trashcan you mentioned?”  
“Oh, that’s nothing,” the man shrugged. “I had an idea for a simple device that could ignite itself. Wanted to make one and toss it into a trashcan.”  
“Just to make trouble?”  
“Yes.”  
“Just, please, don’t give Sid any ideas,” the woman sighed tiredly.

`````

“You know,” Ryder swallowed a forkful of pasta with questionable sauce, “I’ve been wanting to try making something…”  
“Oh, that can’t be good, can it?,” the turian stopped the last of her own food (until-recently-canned mystery meat) about halfway.  
“A shooting omniblade!,” he finished, waving his arm excitedly.  
“But why?”  
Vetra was, very inconveniently, being a nice and smart voice of reason. “Well, stealth, I suppose? It probably wouldn’t be very loud,” the Pathfinder suggested, “but mostly for shits and giggles. How hard can it be?”  
“I’ve heard humans say that before,” she remembered, “and last time it happened, I almost had a lava bath.”  
“Now that sounds like a story?,” Scott raised an eyebrow, looking at her expectantly and, once again, noticing the silver of her face plates, the purple of her markings and the green of her eyes (and also the rows of sharp teeth when she opened her mouth. These were some very sharp teeth that reminded him of her meal being almost entirely meat.)  
“Volcanic planets and mountain climbing don’t mix, Scott,” she chuckled. “And before you blow your arm off with that blade shooter of yours, I found you something interesting.”  
“Ooh, what?,” the human perked up. Vetra has, after all (besides being a good friend for him and distraction for the enemy) has provided him with the best gear around, and something new was probably unusual. He was not disappointed.  
“The Reegar Carbine,” she said and did what Ryder assumed to be a smirk.  
“And what exactly is it?,” he questioned, letting her bask in the glory of slowly divulging awesome information.  
“As you know, the quarians have long been trying to fight the geth,” she began, “and what could be better against a robot than a strong electric shock?”  
“A big bomb?,” he offered, and was promptly ignored.  
“So they made this nifty little thing, if I do say so myself, that apparently ionises the air using an invisible laser and sends a current along that path. Should be really good against any electronics, like shields or Remnant.”  
The human rewarded her with a slow clap. “I can just see a salesman in you,” he chuckled, “and I will say, that weapon sounds mighty interesting, although what I heard is, it needs a reasonable atmosphere to not be a glorified stun baton.”  
“Yeah, I mostly thought it would be for any more Vaults that we find,” Vetra nodded, “and the one on Eos did have air in it.”  
“Well, no worries there,” the Pathfinder summed up, “just don’t take it when we go for a fight in space and everything will be fine. It probably will be mostly for Vaults anyways.”  
The smuggler looked over her shoulder. “You know, Kosta’s been giving us weird looks this entire time.”  
“Yeah, the dinner probably didn’t help much in that regard,” Ryder nodded. “All that remains now is a dance, and he’ll definitely think something.”  
“Uh, Scott,” Vetra said in a somewhat unusual tone, “do you want to dance?”  
“Do you want to dance?,” he asked, and was rewarded with a slow nod and fluttering mandibles as the woman stood up, causing him to wonder just how far he’d just gotten and how hard Sara would kill him when she found out.


End file.
